& 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

PRESENTED  BY 

PROF.  CHARLES  A.  KOFOID  AND 
MRS.  PRUDENCE  W.  KOFOID 


LETTERS  OF  MARQUE 


• 

m 


LETTERS 
OF    MARQ  UE 

By    RUDYARD    KIPLING 


R.  F.  FENNO  &  COMPANY  :  PUB- 
LISHERS :  9  &  ii  E.  SIXTEENTH 
STREET  :  NEW  YORK  CITY :  1899 


DS 


LETTERS  OF  MARQUE 


i. 

Of  the  beginning  of  Things — Of  the  Taj  and 
the  Globe-Trotter — The  Young  Man  from 
Manchester  and  certain  Moral  Reflections. 

FT  XCEPT  for  those  who,  under  compulsion  of 
L*  a  sick  certificate,  are  flying  Bombaywards, 
it  is  good  for  every  man  to  see  some  little  of  the 
great  Indian  Empire  and  the  strange  folk  who 
move  about  it.  It  is  good  to  escape  for  a  time 
from  the  House  of  Rimmon — be  it  office  or  cutch- 
ery — and  to  go  abroad  under  no  more  exact- 
ing master  than  personal  inclination,  and  with 
no  more  definite  plan  of  travel  than  has  the 
horse,  escaped  from  pasture,  free  upon  the  coun- 
try side.  The  first  result  of  such  freedom  is  ex- 
treme bewilderment,  and  the  second  reduces  the 
freed  to  a  state  of  mind  which,  for  his  sins,  must 
be  the  normal  portion  of  the  Globe-Trotter — the 
man  who  "  does  "  kingdoms  in  days  and  writes 
books  upon  them  in  weeks.  And  this  desperate 
facility  is  not  as  strange  as  it  seems.  By  the 


JW358851 


8  Letters  of  Marque 

time  that  an  Englishman  has  come  by  sea  and 
rail  via  America,  J  apan,  Singapore,  and  Ceylon 
to  India,  he  can — these  eyes  have  seen  him  do  so 
— master  in  five  minutes  the  intricacies  of  the 
Indian  Bradshaw,  and  tell  an  old  resident  exactly 
how  and  where  the  trains  run.  Can  we  wonder 
that  the  intoxication  of  success  in  hasty  assimila- 
tion should  make  him  overbold,  and  that  he 
should  try  to  grasp — but  a  full  account  of  the 
insolent  Globe-Trotter  must  be  reserved.  He  is 
worthy  of  a  book.  Given  absolute  freedom  for  a 
month  the  mind,  as  I  have  said,  fails  to  take 
in  the  situation  and,  after  much  debate,  contents 
itself  with  following  in  old  and  well-beaten  ways 
— paths  that  we  in  India  have  no  time  to  tread, 
but  must  leave  to  the  country-cousin  who  wears 
his  pagri  tail-fashion  down  his  back,  and  says 
"  cabman  "  to  the  driver  of  the  ticca-ghari. 

Now  Jeypore  from  the  Anglo-Indian  point 
of  view  is  a  station  on  the  Rajputana-Malwa 
line,  on  the  way  to  Bombay,  where  half  an  hour 
is  allowed  for  dinner,  and  where  there  ought  to 
be  more  protection  from  the  sun  than  at  present 
exists.  Some  few,  more  learned  than  the  rest, 
know  that  garnets  come  from  Jeypore,  and  here 
the  limits  of  our  wisdom  are  set.  We  do  not,  to 
quote  the  Calcutta  shopkeeper,  come  out  "for  the 


Letters  of  Marque  $ 

good  of  our  'ealth,"  and  what  touring  we  accom- 
plish is  for  the  most  part  off  the  line  of  rail. 

For  these  reasons,  and  because  he  wished  to 
study  our  winter  birds  of  passage,  one  of  the  few 
thousand  Englishmen  in  India,  on  a  date  and  in 
a  place  which  have  no  concern  with  the  story, 
sacrificed  all  his  self-respect  and  became — at 
enormous  personal  inconvenience — a  Globe- 
Trotter  going  to  Jeypore,  and  leaving  behind 
him  for  a  little  while  all  that  old  and  well-known 
life  in  wThich  Commissioners  and  Deputy  Com- 
missioners, Governors  and  Lieutenant-Govern- 
ors, Aides-de-Camp,  Colonels  and  their  wives, 
Majors,  Captains  and  Subalterns  after  their 
kind  move  and  rule  and  govern  and  squabble  and 
fight  and  sell  each  other's  horses,  and  tell  wicked 
itories  of  their  neighbours.  But  before  he  had 
fully  settled  into  his  part  or  accustomed  himself 
to  saying  "  Please  take  out  this  luggage  "  to  the 
coolies  at  the  stations,  he  saw  from  the  train  the 
Taj  wrapped  in  the  mists  of  the  morning. 

There  is  a  story  of  a  Frenchman  "  who  feared 
not  God,  nor  regarded  man,"  sailing  to  Egypt 
for  the  express  purpose  of  scoffing  at  the  Pyra- 
mids and — though  this  is  hard  to  believe — at  the 
great  Napoleon  who  had  warred  under  their 
ghadow !  It  is  on  record  that  that  blasphemous 
Gaul  came  to  the  Great  Pyramid  and  wept 


10  Letters  of  Marque 

through  mingled  reverence  and  contrition,  for 
he  sprang  from  an  emotional  race.  To  under- 
stand his  feelings,  it  is  necessary  to  have  read  a 
great  deal  too  much  about  the  Taj,  its  design  and 
proportions,  to  have  seen  execrable  pictures  of 
it  at  the  Simla  Fine  Arts  Exhibition,  to  have 
had  its  praises  sung  by  superior  and  travelled 
friends  till  the  brain  loathed  the  repetition  of  the 
word,  and  then,  sulky  with  want  of  sleep,  heavy- 
eyed,  unwashen  and  chilled,  to  come  upon  it  sud- 
denly. Under  these  circumstances  everything 
you  will  concede,  is  in  favour  of  a  cold, 
critical  and  not  too  impartial  verdict.  As  the 
Englishman  leaned  out  of  the  carriage  he  saw 
first  an  opal-tinted  cloud  on  the  horizon,  and 
later  certain  towers.  The  mdsts  lay  on  the 
ground,  so  that  the  splendour  seemed  to  be  float- 
ing free  of  the  earth ;  and  the  mists  rose  in  the 
background,  so  that  at  no  time  could  everything 
be  seen  clearly.  Then  as  the  train  sped  for- 
ward, and  the  mists  shifted  and  the  sun  shone 
upon  the  mists,  the  Taj  took  a  hundred  new 
shapes,  each  perfect  and  each  beyond  descrip- 
tion. It  was  the  Ivory  Gate  through  which  all 
good  dreams  come ;  it  was  the  realization  of  the 
"  glimmering  halls  of  dawn "  that  Tennyson 
sings  of ;  it  was  veritably  the  "  aspiration  fixed," 
the  "  sigh  made  stone  "  of  a  lesser  poet ;  and  over 


Letters  of  Marque  11 

and  above  concrete  comparisons,  it  seemed  tHe 
embodiment  of  all  things  pure,  all  things  holy 
and  all  things  unhappy.  That  was  the  mystery 
of  the  building.  It  may  be  that  the  mists 
wrought  the  witchery,  and  that  the  Taj  seen  in 
the  dry  sunlight  is  only  as  guide  books  say  a 
noble  structure.  The  Englishman  could  not  tell, 
and  has  made  a  vow  that  he  will  never  go  nearer 
the  spot  for  fear  of  breaking  the  charm  of  the 
unearthly  pavilions. 

It  may  be,  too,  that  each  must  view  the  Taj 
for  himself  with  his  own  eyes ;  working  out  his 
own  interpretation  of  the  sight.  It  is  certain 
that  no  man  can  in  cold  blood  and  colder  ink  set 
down  his  impressions  if  he  has  been  in  the  least 
moved. 

To  the  one  who  watched  and  wondered  that 
November  morning  the  thing  seemed  full  of  sor- 
row— the  sorrow  of  the  man  who  built  it  for  the 
woman  he  loved,  and  the  sorrow  of  the  workmen 
who  died  in  the  building — used  up  like  cattle. 
iAnd  in  the  face  of  this  sorrow  the  Taj  flushed 
in  the  sunlight  and  was  beautiful,  after  the 
beauty  of  a  woman  who  has  done  no  wrong. 

Here  the  train  ran  in  under  the  walls  of  Agra 
Fort,  and  another  train — of  thought  incoherent 
as  that  written  above — came  to  an  end.  Let  those 
who  scoff  at  overmuch  enthusiasm  look  at  the 


12  Letters  of  Marque 

Taj  and  thenceforward  be  dumb.  It  is  well  on 
the  threshold  of  a  journey  to  be  taught  rever- 
ence and  awe. 

But  there  is  no  reverence  in  the  Globe-Trot- 
ter: he  is  brazen.  A  Young  Man  from  Man- 
chester was  travelling  to  Bombay  in  order — how 
the  words  hurt ! — to  be  home  by  Christmas.  He 
had  come  through  America,  New  Zealand,  and 
Australia,  and  finding  that  he  had  ten  days  to 
spare  at  Bombay,  conceived  the  modest  idea  of 
"  doing  India."  "  I  don't  say  that  I've  done  it 
all ;  but  you  may  say  that  I've  seen  a  good  deal." 
Then  he  explained  that  he  had  been  "  much 
pleased"  at  Agra,  "much  pleased"  at  Delhi  and, 
last  profanation,  "very  much  pleased  "  atthe  Taj. 
Indeed  he  seemed  to  be  going  through  life  just 
then  "  much  pleased "  at  everything.  With 
rare  and  sparkling  originality  he  remarked  that 
India  was  a  "  big  place,"  and  that  there  were 
many  things  to  buy.  Verily,  this  Young  Man 
must  have  been  a  delight  to  the  Delhi  boxwallahs. 
He  had  purchased  shawls  and  embroidery  "  to 
the  tune  of  "  a  certain  number  of  rupees  duly  set 
forth,  and  he  had  purchased  jewellery  to  another 
tune.  These  were  gifts  for  friends  at  home,  and 
he  considered  them  "  very  Eastern."  If  silver 
filigree  work  modelled  on  Palais  Koyal  patterns, 
or  aniline  blue  scarves  be  "  Eastern,"  he  had 


Letters  of  Marque  13 

succeeded  in  his  heart's  desire.  For  some  in- 
scrutable end  it  has  been  decreed  that  man  shall 
take  a  delight  in  making  his  fellow-man  mis- 
erable. The  Englishman  began  to  point  out 
gravely  the  probable  extent  to  which  the  Young 
Man  from  Manchester  had  been  swindled,  and 
the  Young  Man  said : — "  By  Jove !  You  don't 
say  so.  I  hate  being  done !  If  there's  anything 
I  hate  it's  being  done !" 

He  had  been  so  happy  in  the  "thought  of  get- 
ting home  by  Christmas,"  and  so  charmingly 
communicative  as  to  the  members  of  his  family 
for  whom  such  and  such  gifts  were  intended, 
that  the  Englishman  cut  short  the  record  of 
fraud  and  soothed  him  by  saying  that  he  had  not 
been  so  very  badly  "  done  "  after  all.  This  con- 
sideration was  misplaced,  for,  his  peace  of  mind 
restored,  the  Young  Man  from  Manchester 
looked  out  of  the  window  and,  waving  his  hand 
over  the  Empire  generally,  said : — "  I  say !  Look 
here!  All  those  wells  are  wrong  you  know." 
The  wells  were  on  the  wheel  and  inclined  plane 
system ;  but  he  objected  to  the  incline,  and  said 
that  it  would  be  much  better  for  the  bullocks  if 
they  walked  on  level  ground.  Then  light  dawned 
upon  him,  and  he  said : — "  I  suppose  it's  to  ex- 
ercise all  their  muscles.  Y'know  a  canal  horse  is 
no  use  after  he  has  been  on  the  tow  path  for  «ome 


14  Letters  of  Marque 

time.  He  can't  walk  anywhere  but  on  the  flat 
y'know,  and  I  suppose  it's  just  the  same  with 
bullocks."  The  spurs  of  the  Aravalis,  under  which 
the  train  was  running,  had  evidently  suggested 
this  brilliant  idea  which  passed  uncontradicted, 
for  the  Englishman  was  looking  out  of  the  win- 
dow. 

If  one  were  bold  enough  to  generalise  after  the 
manner  of  Globe-Trotters,  it  would  be  easy  to 
build  up  a  theory  on  the  well  incident  to  account 
for  the  apparent  insanity  of  some  of  our  cold 
weather  visitors.  Even  the  Young  Man  from 
Manchester  could  evolve  a  complete  idea  for  the 
training  of  well-bullocks  in  the  East  at  thirty- 
seconds'  notice.  How  much  the  more  could  a 
cultivated  observer  from,  let  us  say,  an  English 
constituency  blunder  and  pervert  and  mangle! 
We  in  this  country  have  no  time  to  work  out  the 
notion,  which  is  worthy  of  the  consideration  of 
some  leisurely  Teuton  intellect. 

Envy  may  have  prompted  a  too  bitter  judg- 
ment of  the  Young  Man  from  Manchester ;  for, 
as  the  train  bore  him  from  Jeypore  to  Ahmeda- 
bad,  happy,  in  "  his  getting  home  by  Christ- 
mas," pleased  as  a  child  with  his  Delhi  atrocities, 
pink-cheeked,  whiskered  and  superbly  self-confi- 
dent, the  Englishman,  whose  home  for  the  time 
waa  a  dak  bungaloathesome  hotel,  watched  his 


Letters  of  Marque  15 

departure  regretfully;  for  he  knew  exactly  to 
what  sort  of  genial,  cheery  British  household, 
rich  in  untravelled  kin,  that  Young  Man  was 
speeding.  It  is  pleasant  to  play  at  globe-trotting; 
but  to  enter  fully  into  the  spirit  of  the  piece,  one 
must  also  be  going  home  for  Christmas. 


16  Letters  of  Marque 


II. 

Shows  the  Charm  of  Rajputana  and  of  Jeypore, 
the  City  of  the  Globe-Trotter — Of  itsFounder 
and  its  Embellishment — Explains  the  use  and 
'destiny  of  the  Stud-Bred,  and  fails  to  explain 
many  more  important  matters. 

IF  any  part  of  a  land  strewn  with  dead  men'i 
bones  have  a  special  claim  to  distinction,  Eaj- 
putana,  as  the  cockpit  of  India,  stands  first. 
East  of  Suez  men  do  not  build  towers  on  the  tops 
of  hills  for  the  sake  of  the  view,  nor  do  they  stripe 
the  mountain  sides  with  bastioned  stone  walls  to 
keep  in  cattle.  Since  the  beginning  of  time,  if 
we  are  to  credit  the  legends,  there  was  fighting — 
heroic  fighting — at  the  foot  of  the  Aravalis,  and 
beyond  in  the  great  deserts  of  sand  penned  by 
those  kindly  mountains  from  spreading  over  the 
heart  of  India.  The  "  Thirty-six  Koyal  Eaces  " 
fought  as  royal  races  know  how  to  do,  Chohan 
with  Rahtor,  brother  against  brother,  son  against 
father.  Later — but  excerpts  from  the  tangled 
tale  of  force,  fraud,  cunning,  desperate  love  and 
more  desperate  revenge,  crime  worthy  of  demoni 
and  virtues  fit  for  gods,  may  be  found,  by  all 


Letters  of  Marque  17 

who  care  to  look,  in  the  book  of  the  man  who 
loved  the  Rajputs  and  gave  a  life's  labours  in 
their  behalf.  From  Delhi  to  Abu,  and  from  the 
Indus  to  the  Chambul,  each  yard  of  ground  has 
witnessed  slaughter,  pillage  and  rapine.  But, 
to-day,  the  capital  of  the  State,  that  Dhola  Rae, 
son  of  Soora  Singh,  hacked  out  more  than  nine 
hundred  years  ago  with  the  sword  from  some 
weaker  ruler's  realm,  is  lighted  with  gas,  and 
possesses  many  striking  and  English  peculiari- 
ties which  will  be  shown  in  their  proper  place. 

Dhola  Rae  was  killed  in  due  time,  and  for 
nine  hundred  years  Jeypore,  torn  by  the  in- 
trigues of  unruly  princes  and  princelings,  fought 
Asiatically. 

When  and  how  Jeypore  became  a  feudatory  of 
British  power,  and  in  what  manner  we  put  a 
slur  upon  Rajput  honour — punctilious  as  the 
honour  of  thePathan — are  matters  of  .which  the 
Globe-Trotter  knows  more  than  we  do.  He 
"  reads  up  " — to  quote  his  own  words — a  city  be- 
fore he  comes  to  us,  and,  straightway  going  to 
another  city,  forgets,  or,  worse  still,  mixes  what 
he  has  learnt — so  that  in  the  end  he  writes 
down  the  Rajput  a  Mahratta,  says  that  Lahore  is 
in  the  North-West  Provinces  and  was  once  the 
capital  of  Sivaji,  and  piteously  demands  a 
"  guide-book  on  all  India,  a  thing  that  you  can 


18  Letters  of  Marque 

carry  in  your  trunk  y'know — that  gives  you 
plain  descriptions  of  things  without  mixing  you 
up."  Here  is  a  chance  for  a  writer  of  discrim- 
ination and  void  of  conscience ! 

But  to  return  to  Jeypore — a  pink  city  set  on 
the  border  of  a  blue  lake,  and  surrounded  by  the 
low  red  spurs  of  the  Ar  aval  is — a  city  to  see  and 
to  puzzle  over.  There  was  once  a  ruler  of  the 
State,  called  Jey  Singh,  who  lived  in  the  days  of 
Aurungzeb,  and  did  him  service  with  foot  and 
horse.  He  must  have  been  the  Solomon  of  Kaj- 
putana,  for  through  the  forty-four  years  of  his 
reign  his  "  wisdom  remained  with  him."  He 
led  armies,  and  when  fighting  was  over,  turned 
to  literature ;  he  intrigued  desperately  and  suc- 
cessfully, but  found  time  to  gain  a  deep  insight 
into  astronomy,  and,  by  what  remains  above 
ground  now,  we  can  tell  that  "  whatsoever  his 
eyes  desired,  he  kept  not  from  him."  Knowing 
his  own  worth,  he  deserted  the  city  of  Amber 
founded  by  Dhola  Rae  among  the  hills,  and,  six 
miles  further,  in  the  open  plain,  bade  one  Ved- 
yadhar,  his  architect,  build  a  new  city,  as  seldom 
Indian  city  was  built  before — with  huge  streets 
straight  as  an  arrow,  sixty  yards  broad,  and 
cross-streets  broad  and  straight.  Many  years 
afterwards  the  good  people  of  America  builded 
their  towns  after  this  pattern,  but  knowing 


Letters  of  Marque  19 

nothing  of  Jey  Singh,  they  took  all  the  credit  to 

themselves. 

He  built  himself  everything  that  pleased  him, 
palaces  and  gardens  and  temples,  and  then  died, 
and  was  buried  under  a  white  marble  tomb  on  a 
hill  overlooking  the  city.  He  was  a  traitor,  if 
history  speak  truth,  to  his  own  kin,  and  he  was 
an  accomplished  murderer,  but  he  did  his  best 
to  check  infanticide ;  he  reformed  the  Mahome- 
dan  calendar ;  he  piled  up  a  superb  library  and 
he  made  Jeypore  a  marvel. 

Later  on  came  a  successor,  educated  and  en- 
lightened by  all  the  lamps  of  British  Progress, 
and  converted  the  city  of  Jey  Singh  into  a  sur- 
prise— a  big,  bewildering,  practical  joke.  He 
laid  down  sumptuous  trottolrs  of  hewn  stone, 
and  central  carriage  drives,  also  of  hewn  stone, 
in  the  main  street;  he,  that  is  to  say,  Colonel 
Jacob,  the  Superintending  Engineer  of  the  State, 
devised  a  water-supply  for  the  city  and  studded 
the  ways  with  stand-pipes.  He  built  gas-works, 
set  a-foot  a  School  of  Art,  a  Museum,  all  the 
things  in  fact  which  are  necessary  to  Western 
municipal  welfare  and  comfort,  and  saw  that 
they  were  the  best  of  their  kind.  How  much 
Colonel  Jacob  has  done,  not  only  for  the  good 
of  Jeypore  city  but  for  tlie  good  of  the  State  at 
large,  will  never  be  known,  because  the  officer  in 


20  Letters  of  Marque 

question  is  one  of  the  not  small  class  who  reso- 
lutely refuse  to  talk  about  their  own  work.  The 
result  of  the  good  work  is  that  the  old  and  the 
new,  the  rampantly  raw  and  the  sullenly  old, 
stand  cheek-by-jowl  in  startling  contrast.  Thus, 
the  branded  bull  trips  over  the  rails  of  a  steel 
tramway  which  brings  out  the  city  rubbish  ;  the 
lacquered  and  painted  ruih,  behind  the  two  little 
stag-like  trotting  bullocks,  catches  its  primitive 
wheels  in  the  cast-iron  gas-lamp  post  with  the 
brass  nozzle  a-top,  and  all  Eajputana,  gaily-clad, 
small-turbaned,  swaggering  Rajputana,  circu- 
lates along  the  magnificent  pavements. 

The  fortress-crowned  hills  look  down  upon  the 
strange  medley.  One  of  them  bears  on  its  flank 
in  huge  white  letters  the  cheery  inscript  "  Wel- 
come!" This  was  made  when  the  Prince  of 
Wales  visited  Jeypore  to  shoot  his  first  tiger; 
but  the  average  traveller  of  to-day  may  appro- 
priate the  message  to  himself,  for  Jeypore  takes 
great  care  of  strangers  and  shows  them  all  cour- 
tesy. This,  by  the  way,  demoralises  the  Globe- 
Trotter,  whose  first  cry  is : — "  Where  can  we 
get  horses  ?  Where  can  we  get  elephants  \  Who 
is  the  man  to  write  to  for  all  these  things  2" 

Thanks  to  the  courtesy  of  the  Maharaja,  it  is 
possible  to  see  everything,  but  for  the  incurious 
who  object  to  being  driven  through  their  sights, 


^Letters  of  Marque  21 

a  journey  down  any  one  of  the  great  main  streets 
is  a  day's  delightful  occupation.  The  view  is 
as  unobstructed  as  that  of  the  Champs  Elysees ; 
but  in  place  of  the  white-stone  fronts  of  Paris, 
rises  a  long  line  of  open-work  screen-wall,  the 
prevailing  tone  of  which  is  pink — caramel  pink, 
but  house-owners  have  unlimited  license  to 
decorate  their  tenements  as  they  please.  Jey- 
pore,  broadly  considered,  is  Hindu,  and  her 
architecture  of  the  riotous  many-arched  type 
which  even  the  Globe-Trotter  after  a  short  time 
learns  to  call  Hindu.  It  is  neither  temperate 
nor  noble,  but  it  satisfies  the  general  desire  for 
something  that  "  really  looks  Indian."  A  per- 
verse taste  for  low  company  drew  the  English- 
man from  the  pavement — to  walk  upon  a  real 
stone  pavement  is  in  itself  a  privilege — up  a 
side-street  where  he  assisted  at  a  quail  fight  and 
found  the  low-caste  Rajput  a  cheery  and  affable 
soul.  The  owner  of  the  losing  quail  was  a  sowar 
in  the  Maharaja's  army.  He  explained  that  his 
pay  was  six  rupees  a  month  paid  bi-monthly.  He 
was  cut  the  cost  of  his  khaki  blouse,  brown-leath- 
er accoutrements  and  jack-boots;  lance,  saddle, 
sword,  and  horse  were  given  free.  He  refused  to 
say  for  how  many  months  in  the  year  he  was 
drilled,  and  said  vaguely  that  his  duties  were 
mainly  escort  ones,  and  he  had  no  fault  to  find 


22  Letters  of  Marque 

with  them.  The  defeat  of  his  quail  had  vexed 
him,  and  he  desired  the  Sahib  to  understand  that 
the  sowars  of  His  Highnesses  army  could  ride.  A 
clumsy  attempt  at  a  compliment  so  fired  his 
martial  blood  that  he  climbed  into  his  saddle, 
and  then  and  there  insisted  on  showing  off  his 
horsemanship.  The  road  was  narrow,  the  lance 
was  long,  and  the  horse  was  a  big  one,  but  no 
one  objected,  and  the  Englishman  sat  him  down 
on  a  doorstep  and  watched  the  fun.  The  horse 
seemed  in  some  shadowy  way  familiar.  His 
head  was  not  the  lean  head  of  the  Kathiawar, 
nor  his  crest  the  crest  of  the  Marwarri,  and  his 
fore-legs  did  not  seem  to  belong  to  the  stony 
district.  "  Where  did  he  come  from  ?"  The 
sowar  pointed  northward  and  said  "  from 
Amritsar,"  but  he  pronounced  it  "  Armtzar." 
Many  horses  had  been  brought  at  the  spring 
fairs  in  the  Punpab;  they  cost  about  Rs.  200 
each,  perhaps  more,  the  sowar  could  not  say. 
Some  came  from  Hissar  and  some  from  other 
places  beyond  Delhi.  They  were  very  good 
horses.  "  That  horse  there,"  he  pointed  to  one 
a  little  distance  down  the  street,  "  is  the  son  of  a 
big  Sirkar  horse — the  kind  that  the  Sirkar 
make  for  breeding  horses — so  high!"  The 
owner  of  "  that  horse "  swaggered  up,  jaw- 
bandaged  and  cat-moustached,  and  bade  the  Eng- 


Letters  of  Marque  23 

lishman  look  at  his  mouth;  bought,  of  course, 
when  a  butcha.  Both  men  together  said  that 
the  Sahib  had  better  examine  the  Maharaja 
Sahib's  stable,  where  there  were  hundreds  of 
horses — huge  as  elephants  or  tiny  as  sheep. 

To  the  stables  the  Englishman  accordingly 
went,  knowing  beforehand  what  he  would  find, 
and  wondering  whether  the  Sirkar's  "  big 
horses  "  were  meant  to  get  mounts  for  Rajput 
sowars.  The  Maharaja's  stables  are  royal  in 
size  and  appointments.  The  enclosure  round 
which  they  stand  must  be  about  half  a  mile  long 
— it  allows  ample  space  for  exercising,  besides 
paddocks  for  the  colts.  The  horses,  about  two 
hundred  and  fifty,  are  bedded  in  pure  white 
sand — bad  for  the  coat  if  they  roll,  but  good  for 
the  feet — the  pickets  are  of  white  marble,  the 
heel-ropes  in  every  case  of  good  sound  rope,  and 
in  every  case  the  stables  are  exquisitely  clean. 
Each  stall  contains  above  the  manger,  a  curious 
little  bunk  for  the  syce  who,  if  he  uses  the  ac- 
commodation, must  assuredly  die  once  each  hot 
weather. 

A  journey  round  the  stables  is  saddening,  for 
the  attendants  are  very  anxious  to  strip  their 
charges,  and  the  stripping  shows  so  much.  A 
few  men  in  India  are  credited  with  the  faculty 
of  never  forgetting  a  horse  they  have  once  seen, 


24  Letters  of  Marque 

and  of  knowing  the  produce  of  every  stallion 
they  have  met.  The  Englishman  would  have 
given  something  for  their  company  at  that  hour. 
His  knowledge  of  horseflesh  was  very  limited; 
but  he  felt  certain  that  more  than  one  or  two  of 
the  sleek,  perfectly  groomed  country-breds 
should  have  been  justifying  their  existence  in 
the  ranks  of  the  British  cavalry,  instead  of  eat- 
ing their  heads  off  on  six  seers  of  gram  and  one 
of  goor  per  diem.  But  they  had  all  been  honestly 
bought  and  honestly  paid  for;  and  there  was 
nothing  in  the  wide  world  to  prevent  His  High- 
ness, if  he  wished  to  do  so,  from  sweeping  up  the 
pick  and  pride  of  all  the  horses  in  the  Punjab. 
The  attendants  appeared  to  take  a  wicked  delight 
in  saying  "  eshtud-bred  "  very  loudly  and  with 
unnecessary  emphasis  as  they  threw  back  the 
loin-cloth.  Sometimes  they  were  wrong,  but  in 
too  many  cases  they  were  right. 

The  Englishman  left  the  stables  and  the  great 
central  maidan  where  a  nervous  Biluchi  was  be- 
ing taught,  by  a  perfect  network  of  ropes,  to 
"  monkey  jump,"  and  went  out  into  the  streets 
reflecting  on  the  working  of  horse-breeding  oper- 
ations under  the  Government  of  India,  and  the 
advantages  of  having  unlimited  money  where- 
with to  profit  by  other  people's  mistakes. 

Then,  as  happened  to  the  great  Tartarin  of 


'Letters  of  Marque  25 

Tarescon  in  Milianah,  wild  beasts  began  to  roar, 
and  a  crowd  of  little  boys  laughed.  The  lions 
of  Jeypore  are  tigers,  caged  in  a  public  place 
for  the  sport  of  the  people,  who  hiss  at  them  and 
disturb  their  royal  feelings.  Two  or  three  of  the 
six  great  brutes  are  magnificent.  All  of  them 
are  short-tempered,  and  the  bars  of  their  cap- 
tivity not  too  strong.  A  pariah-dog  was  furtively 
trying  to  scratch  out  a  fragment  of  meat  from 
between  the  bars  of  one  of  the  cages,  and  the 
occupant  tolerated  him.  Growing  bolder — the 
starveling  growled ;  the  tiger  struck  at  him  with 
his  paw  and  the  dog  fled  howling  with  fear. 
When  he  returned,  he  brought  two  friends  with 
him,  and  the  trio  mocked  the  captive  from  a  dis- 
tance. 

It  was  not  a  pleasant  sight  and  suggested  Globe- 
Trotters — gentlemen  who  imagine  that  "  more 
curricles  "  should  come  at  their  bidding,  and  on 
being  undeceived  become  abusive. 


Letters  of  Marque 


III. 

Does  not  in  any  sort  describe  the  Dead  City  of 
Amber,,  but  gives  detailed  information  of  a 
Cotton  Press. 

AND  what  shall  be  said  of  Amber,  Queen  of 
the  Pass — the  city  that  Jey  Singh  bade  his 
people  slough  as  snakes  cast  their  skins  ?  The 
Globe-Trotter  will  assure  you  that  it  must  be 
"done "  before  anything  else,  and  the  Globe- 
Trotter  is,  for  once,  perfectly  correct.  Amber 
lies  between  six  and  seven  miles  from  Jeypore 
among  the  "tumbled  fragments  of  the  hills," 
and  is  reachable  by  so  prosaic  a  conveyance  as  a 
ticca-ghari.  and  so  uncomfortable  a  one  as  an  ele- 
phant. He  is  provided  by  the  Maharaja,  and  the 
people  who  make  India  their  prey  are  apt  to 
accept  his  services  as  a  matter  of  course. 

Rise  very  early  in  the  morning,  before  the 
stars  have  gone  out,  and  drive  through  the  sleep- 
ing city  till  the  pavement  gives  place  to  cactus 
and  sand,  and  educational  and  enlightened  insti- 
tutions to  mile  upon  mile  of  semi-decayed  Hindu 
temples — brown  and  weather-beaten — running 
down  to  the  shores  of  the  great  Man  Sagar  Lake, 
wherein  are  more  ruined  temples,  palaces  and 


Letters  of  Marque  27 

fragments  of  causeways.  The  water-birds  have 
their  home  in  the  half -submerged  arcades  and 
the  mugger  nuzzles  the  shafts  of  the  pillars.  It 
is  a  fitting  prelude  to  the  desolation  of  Amber. 
Beyond  the  Man  Sagar  the  road  of  to-day  climbs 
up-hill,  and  by  its  side  runs  the  huge  stone-cause- 
way of  yesterday — blocks  sunk  in  concrete. 
Down  this  path  the  swords  of  Amber  went  out  to 
kill.  A  triple  wall  rings  the  city,  and,  at  the 
third  gate,  the  road  drops  into  the  valley  of 
Amber.  In  the  half  light  of  dawn,  a  great  city 
sunk  between  hills  and  built  round  three  sides  of 
a  lake  is  dimly  visible,  and  one  waits  to  catch  the 
hum  that  should  rise  from  it  as  the  day  breaks. 
The  air  in  the  valley  is  bitterly  chill.  With  the 
growing  light,  Amber  stands  revealed,  and  the 
traveller  sees  that  it  is  a  city  that  will  never 
wake.  A  few  meenas  live  in  huts  at  the  end  of 
the  valley,  but  the  temples,  the  shrines,  the 
palaces,  and  the  tiers-on-tiers  of  houses  are  deso- 
late. Trees  grow  in  and  split  open  the  walls,  the 
windows  are  filled  with  brushwood,  and  the 
cactus  chokes  the  street.  The  Englishman  made 
his  way  up  the  side  of  the  hill  to  the  great  palace 
that  overlooks  everything  except  the  red  fort  of 
Jeighur,  guardian  of  Amber.  As  the  elephant 
swung  up  the  steep  roads  paved  with  stone  and 
built  out  on  the  sides  of  the  hill,  the  Englishman 


28  Letters  of  Marque 

looked  into  empty  houses  where  the  little  grey 
squirrel  sat  and  scratched  its  ears.  The  peacock 
walked  upon  the  house-tops  and  the  blue  pigeon 
roosted  within.  He  passed  under  iron-studded 
gates  whereof  the  hinges  were  eaten  out  with 
rust,  and  by  walls  plumed  and  crowned  with 
grass,  and  under  more  gateways,  till,  at  last,  he 
reached  the  palace  and  came  suddenly  into  a 
great  quadrangle  where  two  blinded,  arrogant 
stallions,  covered  with  red  and  gold  trappings, 
screamed  and  neighed  at  each  other  from  oppo- 
site ends  of  the  vast  space.  For  a  little  time 
these  were  the  only  visible  living  beings,  and 
they  were  in  perfect  accord  with  the  spirit  of  the 
spot.  Afterwards  certain  workmen  appeared, 
for  it  seems  that  the  Maharaja  keeps  the  old 
palace  of  his  forefathers  in  good  repair,  but  they 
were  modern  and  mercenary,  and  with  great 
difficulty  were  detached  from  the  skirts  of  the 
traveller.  A  somewhat  extensive  experience  of 
palace-seeing  had  taught  him  that  it  is  best  to 
see  palaces  alone,  for  the  Oriental  as  a  guide  is 
undiscriminating  and  sets  too  great  a  store  on 
corrugated  iron-roofs  and  glazed  drain-pipes. 

So  the  Englishman  went  into  this  palace 
built  of  stone,  bedded  on  stone,  springing  out  of 
scarped  rock,  and  reached  by  stone  ways — 
nothing  but  stone.  Presently,  he  stumbled 


Letters  of  Marque  29 

across  a  little  temple  of  Kali,  a  gem  of  marble 
tracery  and  inlay,  very  dark  and,  at  that  hour 
of  the  morning,  very  cold. 

If,  as  Violet-le-Duc  tells  us  to  believe,  a 
building  reflects  the  character  of  its  inhabitants, 
it  must  be  impossible  for  one  reared  in  an 
Eastern  palace  to  think  straightly  or  speak 
freely  or — but  here  the  annals  of  Rajputana 
contradict  the  theory — to  act  openly.  The 
crampt  and  darkened  rooms,  the  narrow  smooth- 
walled  passages  with  recesses  where  a  man 
might  wait  for  his  enemy  unseen,  the  maze  of 
ascending  and  descending  stairs  leading  no- 
whither,  the  ever  present  screens  of  marble  tra- 
cery that  may  hide  or  reveal  so  much, — all  these 
things  breathe  of  plot  and  counter-plot,  league 
and  intrigue.  In  a  living  palace  where  the 
sightseer  knows  and  feels  that  there  are  human 
beings  everywhere,  and  that  he  is  followed  by 
scores  of  unseen  eyes,  the  impression  is  almost 
unendurable.  In  a  dead  palace — a  cemetery  of 
loves  and  hatreds  done  with  hundreds  of  years 
ago,  and  of  plottings  that  had  for  their  end — 
though  the  grey  beards  who  plotted  knew  it 
not — the  coming  of  the  British  tourist  with 
guide-book  and  sunhat — oppression  gives  place 
to  simply  impertinent  curiosity.  The  English- 
man wandered  into  all  parts  of  the  palace,  for 


30  Letters  of  Marque 

there  was  no  one  to  stop  him — not  even  the 
ghosts  of  the  dead  Ranis — through  ivory-stud- 
ded doors,  into  the  women's  quarters,  where  a 
stream  of  water  once  flowed  over  a  chiselled 
marble  channel.  A  creeper  had  set  its  hands 
upon  the  lattice  here,  and  there  was  dust  of  old 
nests  in  one  of  the  niches  in  the  wall.  Did  the 
lady  of  light  virtue  who  managed  to  become 
possessed  of  so  great  a  portion  of  Jey  Singh's 
library  ever  set  her  dainty  feet  in  the  trim 
garden  of  the  Hall  of  Pleasure  beyond  the 
screen-work  ?  Was  it  in  the  forty-pillared  Hall 
of  Audience  that  the  order  went  forth  that  the 
Chief  of  Birjooghar  was  to  be  slain,  and  from 
what  wall  did  the  King  look  out  when  the  horse- 
men clattered  up  the  steep  stone  path  to  the 
palace,  bearing  on  their  saddle-bows  the  heads  of 
the  bravest  of  Raj  ore  ?  There  were  questions  in- 
numerable to  be  asked  in  each  court  and  keep 
and  cell;  aye,  but  the  only  answer  was  the 
cooing  of  the  pigeons  on  the  walls. 

If  a  man  desired  beauty,  there  was  enough 
and  to  spare  in  the  palace ;  and  of  strength  more 
than  enough.  By  inlay  and  carved  marble,  by 
glass  and  colour,  the  Kings  who  took  their 
pleasure  in  that  now  desolate  pile,  made  all  that 
their  eyes  rested  upon  royal  and  superb.  But 
any  description  of  the  artistic  side  of  the  palace, 


Letters  of  Marque  31 

if  it  were  not  impossible,  would  be  wearisome. 
The  wise  man  will  visit  it  when  time  and  occa- 
sion serve,  and  will  then,  in  some  small  measure, 
understand  what  must  have  been  the  riotous, 
sumptuous,  murderous  life  to  which  our  Gov- 
ernors and  Lieutenant-Go vernors,  Commission- 
ers .and  Deputy  Commissioners,  Colonels  and 
Captains  and  the  Subalterns  after  their  kind, 
have  put  an  end. 

From  the  top  of  the  palace  you  may  read  if 
you  please  the  Book  of  Ezekiel  written  in  stone 
upon  the  hillside.  Coming  up,  the  Englishman 
had  seen  the  city  from  below  or  on  a  level.  He 
now  looked  into  its  very  heart — the  heart  that 
had  ceased  to  beat.  There  was  no  sound  of  men 
or  cattle,  or  grind-stones  in  those  pitiful  streets 
— nothing  but  the  cooing  of  the  pigeons.  At 
first  it  seemed  that  the  palace  was  not  ruined  at 
all — that  presently  the  women  would  come  up 
on  the  house-tops  and  the  bells  would  ring  in 
the  temples.  But  as  he  attempted  to  follow 
with  his  eye  the  turns  of  the  streets,  the  Eng- 
lishman saw  that  they  died  out  in  wood  tangle 
and  blocks  of  fallen  stone,  and  that  some  of  the 
houses  were  rent  with  great  cracks,  and  pierced 
from  roof  to  road  with  holes  that  let  in  the 
morning  sun.  The  drip-stones  of  the  eaves  were 
gap-toothed,  and  the  tracery  of  the  screens  had 


32  Letters  of  Marque 

fallen  out  so  that  zenana-rooms  lay  shamelessly 
open  to  the  day.  On  the  outskirts  of  the  city, 
the  strong  walled  houses  dwindled  and  sank 
down  to  mere  stone-heaps  and  faint  indications 
of  plinth  and  wall,  hard  to  trace  against  the 
background  of  stony  soil.  The  shadow  of  the 
palace  lay  over  two-thirds  of  the  city  and  the 
trees  deepened  the  shadow.  "  He  who  has  bent 
him  o'er  the  dead  "  after  the  hour  of  which 
Byron  sings,  knows  that  the  features  of  the  man 
become  blunted  as  it  were — the  face  begins  to 
fade.  The  same  hideous  look  lies  on  the  face  of 
the  Queen  of  the  Pass,  and  when  once  this  is 
realised,  the  eye  wonders  that  it  could  have  ever 
believed  in  the  life  of  her.  She  is  the  city 
"  whose  graves  are  set  in  the  side  of  the  pit,  and 
her  company  is,  round  about  here  graves,"  sister 
of  Pathros,  Zoan  and  No. 

Moved  by  a  thoroughly  insular  instinct,  the 
Englishman  took  up  a  piece  of  plaster  and 
heaved  it  from  the  palace  wall  into  the  dark 
streets  below.  It  bounded  from  a  house-top  to  a 
window-ledge,  and  thence  into  a  little  square, 
and  the  sound  of  its  fall  was  hollow  and  echo- 
ing, as  the  sound  of  a  stone  in  a  well.  Then  the 
silence  closed  up  upon  the  sound,  till  in  the  far 
away  courtyard  below  the  roped  stallions  be- 
gan screaming  afresh.  There  may  be  desolation 


Letters  of  Marque  33 

in  the  great  Indian  Desert  to  the  westward,  and 
there  is  desolation  upon  the  open  seas;  but  the 
desolation  of  Amber  is  beyond  the  loneliness 
either  of  land  or  sea.  Men  by  the  hundred 
thousand  must  have  toiled  at  the  walls  that 
bound  it,  the  temples  and  bastions  that  stud  the 
walls,  the  fort  that  overlooks  all,  the  canals  that 
once  lifted  water  to  the  palace,  and  the  garden  in 
the  lake  of  the  valley.  Renan  could  describe  it  as 
it  stands  to-day,  and  Vereschagin  could  paint  it. 

Arrived  at  this  satisfactory  conclusion,  the 
Englishman  went  down  through  the  palace  and 
the  scores  of  venomous  and  suggestive  little 
rooms  to  the  elephant  in  the  courtyard  and  was 
taken  back  in  due  time  to  the  Nineteenth  Cen- 
tury in  the  shape  of  His  Highness  the  Maha- 
raja's Cotton  Press,  returning  a  profit  of  27  per 
cent.,  and  fitted  with  two  engines  of  fifty  horse- 
power each,  an  hydraulic  press  capable  of  exert- 
ing a  pressure  of  three  tons  per  square  inch, 
and  everything  else  to  correspond.  It  stood 
under  a  neat  corrugated  iron  roof  close  to  the 
Jeypore  Railway  Station,  and  was  in  most  per- 
fect order,  but  somehow  it  did  not  taste  well 
after  Amber.  There  was  aggressiveness  about 
the  engines  and  the  smell  of  the  raw  cotton. 

The  modern  side  of  Jeypore  must  not  be 
mixed  with  the  ancient. 


34:  Letters  of  Marque 


IV. 

The  Temple  of  Mahadeo  and  the  Manners  of 
such  as  see  India — The  Man  by  the  Water- 
Troughs  and  his  Knowledge — The  Voice  of 
the  City  and  what  it  said — Personalities 
and  the  Hospital — The  House  Beautiful  of 
Jeypore  and  its  Builders. 

FEOM  the  Cotton  Press  the  Englishman 
wandered  through  the  wide  streets  till  he 
came  into  a  Hindu  Temple — rich  in  marble, 
stone  and  inlay,  and  a  deep  and  tranquil  silence, 
close  to  the  Public  Library  of  the  State.  The 
brazen  bull  was  hung  with  flowers,  and  men 
were  burning  the  evening  incense  before  Maha- 
^leo,  while  those  who  had  prayed  their  prayer, 
beat  upon  the  bells  hanging  from  the  roof  and 
passed  out,  secure  in  the  knowledge  that  the  god 
had  heard  them.  If  there  be  much  religion, 
there  is  little  reverence,  as  Westerns  under- 
stand the  term,  in  the  services  of  the  gods  of  the 
East.  A  tiny  little  maiden,  child  of  a  mon- 
strously ugly  priest  with  one  chalk-white  eye, 
staggered  across  the  marble  pavement  to  the 
shrine  and  threw,  with  a  gust  of  childish  laugh- 


'Letters  of  Marque  35 

ter,  the  blossoms  she  was  carrying  into  the  lap 
of  the  great  Mahadeo  himself.  Then  she  made 
as  though  she  would  leap  up  to  the  bells  and  ran 
away,  still  laughing,  into  the  shadow  of  the  cells 
behind  the  shrine,  while  her  father  explained 
that  she  was  but  a  baby  and  that  Mahadeo 
would  take  no  notice.  The  temple,  he  said, 
was  specially  favored  by  the  Maharaja,  and 
drew  from  lands  an  income  of  twenty  thousand 
rupees  a  year.  Thakoors  and  great  men  also 
gave  gifts  out  of  their  benevolence ;  and  there 
was  nothing  in  the  wide  world  to  prevent  an 
Englishman  from  following  their  example. 

By  this  time,  for  Amber  and  the  Cotton  Press 
had  filled  the  hours,  night  was  falling,  and  the 
priests  unhooked  the  swinging  jets  and  began  to 
light  up  the  impassive  face  of  Mahadeo  with 
gas !  They  used  Tsendstikker  matches. 

Full  night  brought  the  hotel  and  its  curiously- 
composed  human  menagerie. 

There  is,  if  a  work-a-day  world  will  give 
credit,  a  society  entirely  outside,  and  uncon- 
nected with,  that  of  the  Station — a  planet 
within  a  planet,  where  nobody  knows  anything 
about  the  Collector's  wife,  the  Colonel's  dinner- 
party, or  what  was  really  the  matter  with  the 
Engineer.  It  is  a  curious,  an  insatiably  curious, 
thing,  and  its  literature  is  Newman's  Bradshaiu. 


36  Letters  of  Marque 

Wandering  "  old  arms-sellers  "  and  others  live 
upon  it,  and  so  do  the  garnetmen  and  the  mak- 
ers of  ancient  Rajput  shields.  The  world  of 
the  innocents  abroad  is  a  touching  and  unsophis- 
ticated place,  and  its  very  atmosphere  urges  the 
Anglo-Indian  unconsciously  to  extravagant 
mendacity.  Can  you  wonder,  then,  that  a  guide 
of  long-standing  should  in  time  grow  to  be  an 
accomplished  liar? 

Into  this  world  sometimes  breaks  the  Anglo- 
Indian  returned  from  leave,  or  a  fugitive  to  the 
sea,  and  his  presence  is  like  that  of  a  well-known 
landmark  in  the  desert.  The  old  arms-seller 
knows  and  avoids  him,  and  he  is  detested  by  the 
jobber  of  gharis  who  calls  everyone  "  my  lord  " 
in  English,  and  panders  to  the  "  glaring  race 
anomaly  "  by  saying  that  every  carriage  not 
under  his  control  is  u  rotten,  my  lord,  having 
been  used  by  natives."  One  of  the  privileges  of 
playing  at  tourist  is  the  brevet-rank  of  "Lord." 
Hazur  is  not  to  be  compared  with  it. 

There  are  many,  and  some  very  curious, 
methods  of  seeing  India.  One  of  these  is  buying 
English  translations  of  the  more  Zolaistic  of 
Zola's  novels  and  reading  them  from  breakfast 
to  dinner-time  in  the  verandah.  Yet  another, 
even  simpler,  is  American  in  its  conception. 
Take  a  Newman's  BradsJiaw  and  a  blue  pencil, 


Letters  of  Marque  37 

and  race  up  and  down  the  length  of  the  Empire, 
ticking  off  the  names  of  the  stations  "  done." 
To  do  this  thoroughly,  keep  strictly  to  the  rail- 
way buildings  and  form  your  conclusions 
through  the  carriage-windows.  These  eyes  have 
seen  both  ways  of  working  in  full  blast  and,  on 
the  whole,  the  first  is  the  most  commendable. 

Let  us  consider  now  with  due  reverence  the 
modern  side  of  Jeypore.  It  is  difficult  to  write 
of  a  nickel-plated  civilisation  set  down  under 
the  immemorial  Aravalis  in  the  first  state  of 
Rajputana.  The  red -grey  hills  seem  to  laugh  at 
it,  and  the  ever-shifting  sand-dunes  under  the 
hills  take  no  account  of  it,  for  they  advance 
upon  the  bases  of  the  inonogrammed,  coronet- 
crowned  lamp-posts,  and  fill  up  the  points  of  the 
natty  tramways  near  the  Water-works,  which 
are  the  outposts  of  the  civilisation  of  Jeypore. 

Escape  from  the  city  by  the  Railway  Station 
till  you  meet  the  cactus  and  the  mud-bank  and 
the  Maharaja's  Cotton  Press.  Pass  between  a 
tramway  and  a  trough  for  wayfaring  camels  till 
your  foot  sinks  ankle-deep  in  soft  sand,  and  you 
come  upon  what  seems  to  be  the  fringe  of  il- 
limitable desert — mound  upon  mound  of  tus- 
socks overgrown  with  plumed  grass  where  the 
parrots  sit  and  swing.  Here,  if  you  have  kept  to 
the  road,  you  shall  find  a  bund  faced  with  stone, 


38  Letters  of  Marque 

a  great  tank,  and  pumping  machinery  fine  as  the 
heart  of  a  municipal  engineer  can  desire — pure 
water,  sound  pipes  and  well-kept  engines.  If 
you  belong  to  what  is  sarcastically  styled  an 
"  able  and  intelligent  municipality  "  under  the 
British  Raj,  go  down  to  the  level  of  the  tank, 
scoop  up  the  water  in  your  hands  and  drink,  think- 
ing meanwhile  of  the  defects  of  the  town  whence 
you  came.  The  experience  will  be  a  profitable 
one.  There  are  statistics  in  connection  with 
the  Water-works,  figures  relating  to  "  three- 
throw-plungers,"  delivery  and  supply,  which 
should  be  known  to  the  professional  reader. 
They  would  not  interest  the  unprofessional  who 
would  learn  his  lesson  among  the  thronged 
stand-pipes  of  the  city. 

While  the  Englishman  was  preparing  in  his 
mind  a  scathing  rebuke  for  an  erring  municipal- 
ity that  he  knew  of,  a  camel  swung  across  the 
sands,  its  driver's  jaw  and  brow  bound  mummy 
fashion  to  guard  against  the  dust.  Ths  man 
was  evidently  a  stranger  to  the  place,  for  he 
pulled  up  and  asked  the  Englishman  where  the 
drinking  troughs  were.  He  was  a  gentleman 
and  bore  very  patiently  with  the  Englishman's 
absurd  ignorance  of  his  dialect.  He  had  come 
from  some  village,  with  an  unpronounceable 
name,  thirty  Jcos  away,  to  see  his  brother's  son 


Letters  of  Marque  39 

who  was  sick  in  the  big  Hospital.  While  the 
camel  was  drinking,  the  man  talked,  lying  back 
on  his  mount.  He  knew  nothing  of  Jeypore, 
except  the  names  of  certain  Englishmen  in  it, 
the  men  who,  he  said,  had  made  the  Water- 
works and  built  the  Hospital  for  his  brother's 
son's  comfort. 

And  this  is  the  curious  feature  of  Jeypore; 
though  happily  the  city  is  not  unique  in  its 
peculiarity.  When  the  late  Maharaja  ascended 
the  throne,  more  than  fifty  years  ago,  it  was  his 
royal  will  and  pleasure  that  Jeypore  should  ad- 
vance. Whether  he  was  prompted  by  love  for 
his  subjects,  desire  for  praise,  or  the  magnifi- 
cent vanity  with  which  Jey  Singh  must  have 
been  so  largely  dowered,  are  questions  that  con- 
cern nobody.  In  the  latter  years  of  his  reign, 
he  was  suppled  with  Englishmen  who  made  the 
State  their  father-land,  and  identified  them- 
selves with  its  progress  as  only  Englishmen  can. 
Behind  them  stood  the  Maharaja  ready  to  spend 
money  with  a  lavishness  that  no  Supreme  Gov- 
ernment would  dream  of;  and  it  would  not  be 
too  much  to  say  that  the  two  made  the  State 
what  it  is.  When  "Ram  Singh  died,  Madho 
Singh,  his  successor,  a  conservative  Hindu, 
forebore  to  interfere  in  any  way  with  the  work 
that  was  going  forward.  It  is  said  in  the  city 


40  Letters  of  Marque 

that  he  does  not  overburden  himself  with  the 
cares  of  State,  the  driving  power  being  mainly 
in  the  hands  of  a  Bengali,  who  has  everything 
but  the  name  of  Minister.  iTor  do  the  English- 
men, it  is  said  in  the  city,  mix  themselves  with 
the  business  of  Government;  their  business  be- 
ing wholly  executive. 

They  can,  according  to  the  voice  of  the  city, 
do  what  they  please,  and  the  voice  of  the  city — 
not  in  the  main  roads  but  in  the  little  side-alleys 
where  the  stall-less  bull  blocks  the  path — 
attests  how  well  their  pleasure  has  suited  the 
pleasure  of  the  people.  In  truth,  to  men  of 
action  few  things  could  be  more  delightful  than 
having  a  State  of  fifteen  thousand  square  miles 
placed  at  their  disposal,  as  it  were,  to  leave  their 
mark  on.  Unfortunately  for  the  vagrant  travel- 
ler, those  who  work  hard  for  practical  ends  pre- 
fer not  to  talk  about  their  doings,  and  he  must, 
therefore,  pick  up  what  information  he  can  at 
second-hand  or  in  the  city.  The  men  at  the 
stand-pipes  explain  that  the  Maharaja  Sahib's 
father  gave  the  order  for  the  Water-works  and 
that  Yakub  Sahib  made  them — not  only  in  the 
city  but  out  away  in  the  district.  "  Did  people 
grow  more  crops  thereby  ?"  "  Of  course  they 
did :  were  canals  made  to  wash  in  only  ?"  "  How 
much  more  crops  ?"  "  Who  knows.  The  Sahib 


Letters  of  Marque  41 

had  better  go  and  ask  some  official."  Increased 
irrigation  means  increase  of  revenue  for  the 
State  somewhere,  but  the  man  who  brought 
about  the  increase  does  not  say  so. 

After  a  few  days  of  amateur  globe-trotting,  a 
shamelessness  great  as  that  of  the  other  loafer — 
the  red-nosed  man  who  hangs  about  compounds 
and  is  always  on  the  eve  of  starting  for  Cal- 
cutta— possesses  the  masquerader;  so  that  he 
feels  equal  to  asking  a  Kesident  for  a  parcel-gilt 
howdah,  or  dropping  in  to  dinner  with  a  Lieu- 
tenant-Governor.  No  man  has  a  right  to  keep 
anything  back  from  a  Globe-Trotter,  who  is  a 
mild,  temperate,  gentlemanly  and  unobtrusive 
seeker  after  truth.  Therefore  he  who,  without 
a  word  of  enlightenment,  sends  the  visitor  into 
a  city  which  he  himself  has  beautified  and 
adorned  and  made  clean  and  wholesome,  de- 
serves unsparing  exposure.  And  the  city  may 
be  trusted  to  betray  him.  The  malli  in  the  Ram 
Newa's  Gardens,  gardens — here  the  English- 
man can  speak  from  a  fairly  extensive  experi- 
ence— finer  than  any  in  India  and  fit  to  rank 
with  the  best  in  Paris — says  that  the  Maharaja 
gave  the  order  and  Yakub  Sahib  made  the 
Gardens.  He  also  says  that  the  Hospital  just 
outside  the  Gardens  was  built  by  Yakub  Sahib, 
and  if  the  Sahib  will  go  to  the  centre  of  the 


42  Letters  of  Marque 

Gardens,  he  will  find  another  big  building,  a 
Museum  by  the  same  hand. 

But  the  Englishman  went  first  to  the  Hos- 
pital, and  found  the  out-patients  beginning  to 
arrive.  A  hospital  cannot  tell  lies  about  its 
own  progress  as  a  municipality  can.  Sick  folk 
either  come  or  lie  in  their  own  villages.  In  the  case 
of  the  Mayo  Hospital  they  came,  and  the  opera- 
tion-book showed  that  they  had  been  in  the  habit 
of  coming.  Doctors  at  issue  with  provincial  and 
local  administrations,  Civil  Surgeons  who  can- 
not get  their  indents  complied  with,  ground- 
down  and  mutinous  practitioners  all  India  over, 
would  do  well  to  visit  the  Mayo  Hospital,  Jey- 
pore.  They  might,  in  the  exceeding  bitterness 
of  their  envy,  be  able  to  point  out  some  defects 
in  its  supplies,  or  its  beds,  or  its  splints,  or  in 
the  absolute  isolation  of  the  women's  quarters 
from  the  men's. 

Envy  is  a  low  and  degrading  passion,  and 
should  be  striven  against.  From  the  Hospital 
the  Englishman  went  to  the  Museum  in  the  cen- 
tre of  the  Gardens,  and  was  eaten  up  by  it,  for 
Museums  appealed  to  him.  The  casing  of  the 
jewel  was  in  the  first  place  superb — a  wonder  of 
carven  white  stone  of  the  Indo-Saracenic  style. 
It  stood  on  a  stone  plinth,  and  was  rich  in  stone- 
tracery,  green  marble  columns  from  Ajmir,  red 


Letters  of  Marque  43 

marble,  white  marble  colonnades,  courts  with 
fountains,  richly-carved  wooden  doors,  frescoes, 
inlay  and  colour.  The  ornamentation  of  the 
tombs  of  Delhi,  the  palaces  of  Agra  and  the 
walls  of  Amber,  have  been  laid  under  contribu- 
tion to  supply  the  designs  in  bracket,  arch,  and 
soffit;  and  stone-masons  from  the  Jeypore 
School  of  Art  have  woven  into  the  work  the  best 
that  their  hands  could  produce.  The  building 
in  essence,  if  not  in  the  fact  of  to-day,  is  the 
work  of  Freemasons.  The  men  were  allowed  a 
certain  scope  in  their  choice  of  detail  and  the 

result but  it  should  be  seen  to  be  understood, 

as  it  stands  in  those  Imperial  Gardens.  And 
observe,  the  man  who  had  designed  it,  who  had 
superintended  its  erection,  had, said  no  word  to 
indicate  that  there  was  such  a  thing  in  the  place, 
or  that  every  foot  of  it,  from  the  domes  of  the 
roof  to  the  cool  green  chunam  dadoes  and  the 
carving  of  the  rims  of  the  fountains  in  the  court- 
yard, was  worth  studying !  Round  the  arches  of 
the  great  centre  court  are  written  in  Sanskrit 
and  Hindi,  texts  from  the  great  Hindu  writers 
of  old,  bearing  on  the  beauty  of  wisdom  and  the 
sanctity  of  knowledge. 

In  the  central  corridor  are  six  great  frescoes, 
each  about  nine  feet  by  five,  copies  of  illustra- 
tions in  the  Eoyal  Folio  of  the  Rastmnameh,  the 


44  Letters  of  Marque 

Mahabharata,  which  Akbar  caused  to  be  done  by 
the  best  artists  of  his  day.  The  original  is  in 
the  Museum,  and  he  who  can  steal  it,  will  find  a 
purchaser  at  any  price  up  to  fifty  thousand 
pounds. 


Letters  of  Marque  45 


V. 

Of  the  Sordidness  of  the  Supreme  Government 
on  the  Revenue  Side;  and  of  the  Palace  of 
Jeypore — A  great  King's  Pleasure-House, 
and  the  Work  of  the  Servants  of  State. 

I  ETERNALLY,  there  is,  in  all  honesty,  no 
1  limit  to  the  luxury  of  the  Jeypore  Museum. 
It  revels  in  "  South  Kensington  "  cases —  of 
the  approved  pattern — that  turn  the  beholder 
home-sick,  and  South  Kensington  labels,  where- 
on the  description,  measurements  and  price  of 
each  object,  are  fairly  printed.  These  make 
savage  one  who  knows  how  labelling  is  bungled 
in  some  of  the  Government  Museums — those 
starved  barns  that  are  supposed  to  hold  the 
economic  exhibits,  not  of  little  States  but  of 
great  Provinces. 

The  floors  are  of  dark  red  chunam,  overlaid 
with  a  discreet  and  silent  matting;  the  doors, 
where  they  are  not  plate-glass,  are  of  carved 
wood,  no  two  alike,  hinged  by  sumptuous  brass 
hinges  on  to  marble  jambs  and  opening  without 
noise.  On  the  carved  marble  pillars  of  each 
hall  are  fixed  revolving  cases  of  the  S.  K.  M. 


4:6  Letters  of  Marque 

pattern  to  show  textile  fabrics,  gold  lace  and  the 
like.  In  the  recesses  of  the  walls  are  more  cases, 
and  on  the  railing  of  the  gallery  that  runs  round 
each  of  the  three  great  central  rooms,  are  fixed 
low  cases  to  hold  natural  history  specimens  and 
models  of  fruits  and  vegetables. 

Hear  this,  Governments  of  India  from  the 
Punjab  to  Madras !  The  doors  come  true  to  the 
jamb,  the  cases,  which  have  been  through  a  hot 
weather,  are  neither  warped  nor  cracked,  nor 
are  there  unseemly  tallow-drops  and  flaws  in  the 
glasses.  The  maroon  cloth,  on  or  against  which 
the  exhibits  are  placed,  is  of  close  texture, 
untouched  by  the  moth,  neither  stained  nor 
meagre  nor  sunfaded;  the  revolving  cases  revolve 
freely  and  without  rattling ;  there  is  not  a  speck 
of  dust  from  one  end  of  the  building  to  the  other, 
because  the  menial  staff  are  numerous  enough  to 
keep  everything  clean,  and  the  Curator's  office 
is  a  veritable  office — not  a  shed  or  a  bath-room, 
or  a  loose-box  partitioned  from  the  main  build- 
ing. These  things  are  so  because  money  has 
been  spent  on  the  Museum,  and  it  is  now  a  re- 
buke to  all  other  Museums  in  India,  from  Cal- 
cutta downwards.  Whether  it  is  not  too  good  to 
be  buried  away  in  a  Native  State  is  a  question 
which  envious  men  may  raise  and  answer  as 
they  choose.  "Not  long  ago,  the  Editor  of  a 


Letters  of  Marque.  47 

Bombay  paper  passed  through  it,  but  having 
the  interests  of  the  Egocentric  Presidency  be- 
fore his  eyes,  dwelt  more  upon  the  idea  of  the 
building  than  its  structural  beauties;  saying 
that  Bombay,  who  professed  a  weakness  for 
technical  education,  should  be  ashamed  of  her- 
self. And  herein  he  was  quite  right. 

The  system  of  the  Museum  is  complete  in 
intention  as  are  its  appointments  in  design.  At 
present  there  are  some  fifteen  thousand  objects 
of  art,  "  surprising  in  themselves  "  as,  Count 
Smaltork  would  say,  a  complete  exposition  of 
the  arts,  from  enamels  to  pottery  and  from 
brassware  to  stone-carving,  of  the  State  of  Jey- 
pore.  They  are  compared  with  similar  arts  of 
other  lands.  Thus  a  Damio's  sword — a  gem  of 
lacquer-plaited  silk  and  stud-work — flanks  the 
tulwars  of  Marwar  and  the  jezails  of  Tonk ;  and 
reproductions  of  Persian  and  Russian  brass- 
work  stand  side  by  side  with  the  handicrafts  of 
the  pupils  of  the  Jeypore  School  of  Art.  A 
photograph  of  His  Highness  the  present  Maha- 
raja is  set  among  the  arms,  which  are  the  most 
prominent  features  of  the  first  or  metal-room. 
As  the  villagers  enter,  they  salaam  reverently  to 
the  photo,  and  then  move  on  slowly,  with  an 
evidently  intelligent  interest  in  what  they  see. 
Ruskin  could  describe  the  scene  admirablv — 


48  Letters  of  Marque 

pointing  out  how  reverence  must  precede  the 
study  of  art,  and  how  it  is  good  for  Englishmen 
and  Rajputs  alike  to  bow  on  occasion  before 
Gessler's  cap.  They  thumb  the  revolving  cases 
of  cloths  do  these  rustics,  and  artlessly  try  to  feel 
the  texture  through  the  protecting  glass.  The 
main  object  of  the  Museum  is  avowedly  provin- 
cial— to  show  the  craftsman  of  Jeypore  the  best 
that  his  predecessors  could  do,  and  to  show  him 
what  foreign  artists  have  done.  In  time — but 
the  Curator  of  the  Museum  has  many  schemes 
which  will  assuredly  bear  fruit  in  time,  and  it 
would  be  unfair  to  divulge  them.  Let  those  who 
doubt  the  thoroughness  of  a  Museum  under  one 
man's  control,  built,  filled,  and  endowed  with 
royal  generosity — an  institution  perfectly  inde- 
pendent of  the  Government  of  India — go  and 
exhaustively  visit  Dr.  Ilendley's  charge  at  Jey- 
pore. Like  the  man  who  made  the  building,  he 
refuses  to  talk,  and  so  the  greater  part  of  the 
work  that  he  has  in  hand  must  be  guessed  at. 

At  one  point,  indeed,  the  Curator  was  taken 
off  his  guard.  A  huge  map  of  the  kingdom 
showed  in  green  the  portions  that  had  been 
brought  under  irrigation,  while  blue  circles 
marked  the  towns  that  owned  dispensaries.  "  I 
want  to  bring  every  man  in  the  State  within 
twenty  miles  of  a  dispensary,  and  Fve  nearly 


Letters  of  Marque  49 

done  it,"  said  he.  Then  he  checked  himself,  and 
went  off  to  food-grains  in  little  bottles  as  being 
neutral  and  colourless  things.  Envy  is  forced 
to  admit  that  the  arrangement  of  the  Museum — 
far  too  important  a  matter  to  be  explained  off- 
hand— is  Continental  in  its  character,  and  has  a 
definite  ^nd  and  bearing — a  trifle  omitted  by 
many  institutions  other  than  Museums.  But — 
in  fine,  what  can  one  say  of  a  collection  whose 
very  labels  are  gilt-edged!  Shameful  extrava- 
gance ?  Nothing  of  the  kind — only  finish,  per- 
fectly in  keeping  with  the  rest  of  the  fittings — 
a  finish  that  we  in  Jcutcha  India  have  failed  to 
catch.  That  is  all ! 

From  the  Museum  go  out  through  the  city  to 
the  Maharaja's  Palace — skilfully  avoiding  the 
man  who  would  show  you  the  Maharaja's 
European  billiard-room,  and  wander  through  a 
wilderness  of  sunlit,  sleepy  courts,  gay  with 
paint  and  frescoes,  till  you  reach  an  inner 
square,  where  smiling  grey-bearded  men  squat 
at  ease  and  play  chaupur — just  such  a  game  as 
cost  the  Pandavs  the  fair  Draupadi — with  in- 
laid dice  and  gaily  lacquered  pieces.  These  an- 
cients are  very  polite  and  will  press  you  to  play, 
but  give  no  heed  to  them,  for  chaupur  is  an  ex- 
pensive game — expensive  as  quail-fighting,  when 
you  have  backed  the  wrong  bird  and  the  people 


50  Letters  of  Marque 

are  laughing  at  your  inexperience.  The  Maha- 
raja's Palace  is  arrogantly  gay,  overwhelmingly 
rich  in  candelabra,  painted  ceilings,  gilt  mirrors 
and  other  evidences  of  a  too  hastily  assimilated 
civilisation;  but,  if  the  evidence  of  the  ear  can 
be  trusted,  the  old,  old  game  of  intrigue  goes  on 
as  merrily  as  of  yore.  A  figure  in  saffron  came 
out  of  a  dark  arch  into  the  sunlight,  almost  fall- 
ing into  the  arms  of  one  in  pink.  "  Where  have 

you  come  from  ?"   "  I  have  been  to  see "the 

name  was  unintelligible.  "  That  is  a  lie :  you 
have  not!"  Then,  across  the  court,  some  one 
laughed  a  low  croaking  laugh.  The  pink  and 
saffron  figures  separated  as  though  they  had 
been  shot,  and  disappeared  into  separate  bolt- 
holes.  It  was  a  curious  little  incident,  and 
might  have  meant  a  great  deal  or  just  nothing 
at  all.  It  distracted  the  attention  of  the  ancients 
bowed  above  the  chaupur  cloth. 

In  the  Palace-gardens  there  is  even  a  greater 
stillness  than  that  about  the  courts,  and  here 
nothing  of  the  West,  unless  a  hypercritical  soul 
might  take  exception  to  the  lamp-posts.  At  the 
extreme  end  lies  a  lake-like  tank  swarming  with 
muggers.  It  is  reached  through  an  opening 
tinder  a  block  of  zenana  buildings.  Remember- 
ing that  all  beasts  by  the  palaces  of  Kings  or  the 
temples  of  priests  in  this  country  would  answer 


Letters  of  Marque  51 

to  the  name  of  "Brother,"  the  Englishman 
cried  with  the  voice  of  faith  across  the  WP  _,r,  in 
a  key  as  near  as  might  be  to  the  melr  '  xas  howl 
of  the  "  monkey  faquir  "  on  the  *  ^  of  Jakko. 
And  the  mysterious  freemasonry  did  not  fail. 
At  the  far  end  of  the  tank^rose  a  ripple  that 
grew  and  grew  and  grew  liko  a  thing  in  a  night- 
mare, and  became  presently  an  aged  mugger.  As 
he  neared  the  shore,  there  emerged,  the  green 
slime  thick  upon  his  eyelids,  another  beast,  and 
the  two  together  snapped  at  a  cigar-butt — the  only 
reward  for  their  courtesy.  Then,  disgusted,  they 
sank  stern  first  with  a  gen  tie  sigh.  Nowamugger's 
sigh  is  the  most  suggestive  sound  in  animal 
speech.  It  suggested  first  the  zenana  buildings 
overhead,  the  walled  passes  through  the  purple 
hills  beyond,  a  horse  that  might  clatter  through 
the  passes  till  he  reached  the  Man  Sagar  Lake 
below  the  passes,  and  a  boat  that  might  row 
across  the  Man  Sagar  till  it  nosed  the  wall  of 
the  Palace-tank  and  then — then  uprose  the  mug- 
ger with  the  filth  upon  his  forehead  and  winked 
one  horny  eyelid — in  truth  he  did ! — and  so  sup- 
plied a  fitting  end  to  a  foolish  fiction  of  old  days 
and  things  that  might  have  been.  But  it  must 
be  unpleasant  to  live  in  a  house  whose  base  is 
washed  by  such  a  tank. 

And  so  back  as  Pepys  says,  through  the  chu- 


52  Letters  of  Marque 

named  courts,  and  among  the  gentle  slopingpaths 
between  the  orange  trees,  up  to  an  entrance  of 
the  Palace  guarded  by  two  rusty  brown  dogs 
from  Kabul,  each  big  as  a  man,  and  each  re- 
quiring a  man's  eharpoy  to  sleep  upon.  Very 
gay  was  the  front  **>i  the  Palace,  very  brilliant 
were  the  glimpses  of  the  damask-couched,  gilded 
rooms  within,  and  very,  very  civilised  were  the 
lamp-posts  with  Ram  Singh's  monogram,  de- 
vised to  look  like  V.  R.,  at  the  bottom,  and  a 
coronet,  as  hath  been  shown,  at  the  top.  An  un- 
seen brass  band  among  the  orange-bushes  struck 
up  the  overture  of  the  Bronze  Horse.  Those 
who  know  the  music  will  see  at  once  that  that 
was  the  only  tune  which  exactly  and  perfectly 
fitted  the  scene  and  its  surroundings.  It  was  a 
coincidence  and  a  revelation. 

In  his  time  and  when  he  was  not  fighting,  Jey 
Singh  the  Second,  who  built  the  city,  was  a 
great  astronomer — a  royal  Omar  Khayyam,  for 
he,  like  the  tent-maker  of  Nishapur,  reformed 
a  calendar,  and  strove  to  wring  their  mysteries 
from  the  stars  with  instruments  worthy  of  a 
King.  But  in  the  end  he  wrote  that  the  good- 
ness of  the  Almighty  was  above  everything,  and 
died ;  leaving  his  observatory  to  decay  without 
the  Palace-grounds. 

From  the  Bronze  Horse  to  the  grass-grown 


Letters   of  Marque  53 

enclosure  that  holds  the  Yantr  Samrat,  or 
Prince  of  Dials,  is  rather  an  abrupt  passage. 
Jey  Singh  built  him  a  dial  with  a  gnomon  some 
ninety  feet  high,  to  throw  a  shadow  against  the 
sun,  and  the  gnomon  stands  to-day,  though  there 
is  grass  in  the  kiosque  at  the  top  and  the  flight 
of  steps  up  the  hypotenuse  is  worn.  He  built 
also  a  zodiacal  dial — twelve  dials  upon  one  plat- 
form— to  find  the  moment  of  true  noon  at  any 
time  of  the  year,  and  hollowed  out  of  the  earth 
place  for  two  hemispherical  cups,  cut  by  belts 
,of  stone,  for  comparative  observations. 

He  made  cups  for  calculating  eclipses,  and  a 
mural  quadrant  and  many  other  strange  things 
of  stone  and  mortar,  of  which  people  hardly 
know  the  names  and  but  very  little  of  the  uses. 
Once,  said  the  keeper  of  two  tiny  elephants,  In- 
dur  and  Har,  a  Sahib  came  with  the  Burra  Lai 
Sahib,  and  spent  eight  days  in  the  enclosure  of 
the  great  neglected  observatory,  seeing  and  writ- 
ing things  in  a  book.  But  he  understood  San- 
skrit— the  Sanskrit  upon  the  faces  of  the  dials, 
and  the  meaning  of  the  gnoma  and  pointers. 
ITow-a-days  no  one  understands  Sanskrit — not 
even  the  Pundits ;  but  without  doubt  Jey  Singh 
was  a  great  man. 

The  hearer  echoed  the  statement,  though  he 
knew  nothing  of  astronomy,  and  of  all  the 


54:  Letters  of  Marque 

wonders  in  the  observatory  was  only  struck  by 
the  fact  that  the  shadow  of  the  Prince  of  Dials 
moved  over  its  vast  plate  so  quickly  that  it 
seemed  as  though  Time,  wroth  at  the  insolence 
of  Jey  Singh,  had  loosed  the  Horses  of  the  Sun 
and  were  sweeping  everything — dainty  Palace- 
gardens  and  ruinous  instruments — into  the 
darkness  of  eternal  night.  So  he  went  away 
chased  by  the  shadow  on  the  dial,  and  returned 
to  the  hotel,  where  he  found  men  who  said — this 
must  be  a  catch-word  of  Globe-Trotters — that 
they  were  "  much  pleased  at  "  Amber.  They 
further  thought  that  "  house-rent  would  be 
cheap  in  those  parts,"  and  sniggered  over  the 
witticism.  Jey  Singh,  in  spite  of  a  few  discred- 
itable laches,  was  a  temperate  and  tolerant  man ; 
but  he  would  have  hanged  those  Globe-Trotters 
in  their  trunk-straps  as  high  as  the  Yantr 
Samrat. 

Next  morning,  in  the  grey  dawn,  the  English- 
man rose  up  and  shook  the  sand  of  Jeypore  from 
his  feet,  and  went  with  Master  Coryatt  and  Sir 
Thomas  Roe  to  "  Adsmir,"  wondering  whether 
a  year  in  Jeypore  would  be  sufficient  to  exhaust 
its  interest,  and  why  he  had  not  gone  out  to  the 
tombs  of  the  dead  Kings  and  the  passes  of  Gulta 
and  the  fort  of  Motee  Dungri.  But  what  he 
wondered  at  most — knowing  how  many  men 


Letters  of  Marque  .  55 

who  have  in  any  way  been  connected  with  the 
birth  of  an  institution,  do,  to  the  end  of  their 
days,  continue  to  drag  forward  and  exhume 
their  labours  and  the  honours  that  did  not  come 
to  them — was  the  work  of  the  two  men  who,  to- 
gether for  years  past,  have  been  pushing  Jey- 
pore  along  the  stone-dressed  paths  of  civilisa- 
tion, peace  and  comfort.  "  Servants  of  the 
Raj  "they  called  themselves,  and  surely  they  have 
served  the  Raj  past  all  praise.  The  pen  and 
tact  of  a  Wilfred  Blunt  are  needed  to  fitly  lash 
their  reticence.  But  the  people  in  the  city  and 
the  camel-driver  from  the  sand-hills  told  of 
them.  They  themselves  held  their  peace  as  to 
what  they  had  done,  and,  when  pressed,  referred 
— crowning  baseness — to  reports.  Printed  ones! 


56  Letters  of  Marque 


VI. 

Showing   how   Her  Majesty's  Mails   went   to 
Udaipur  and  fell  out  by  the  Way. 

A  KBIVED  at  Ajmir,  the  Englishman  fell 
J\  among  tents  pitched  under  the  shadow  of  a 
huge  banian  tree,  and  in  them  was  a  Punjabi. 
Now  there  is  no  brotherhood  like  the  brother- 
hood of  the  Pauper  Province;  for  it  is  even 
greater  than  the  genial  and  unquestioning  hos- 
pitality which,  in  spite  of  the  loafer  and  the 
Globe-Trotter,  seems  to  exist  throughout  India. 
Ajmir  being  British  territory,  though  the  in- 
habitants are  allowed  to  carry  arms,  is  the  head- 
quarters of  many  of  the  banking  firms  who  lend 
to  the  Native  States.  The  complaint  of  the 
Setts  to-day  is  that  their  trade  is  bad,  because 
an  unsympathetic  Government  induces  the  Na- 
tive States  to  make  railways  and  become  pros- 
perous. "  Look  at  Jodhpur !"  said  a  gentleman 
whose  possessions  might  be  roughly  estimated 
at  anything  between  thirty  and  forty-five  lakhs. 
"  Time  was  when  Jodhpur  was  always  in  debt — 
and  not  so  long  ago,  either.  Now,  they've  got  a 
railroad  and  are  carrying  salt  over  it,  and,  as 
sure  as  I  stand  here,  they  have  a  surplus!  What 


Letters   of  Marque  57 

can  we  do  ?"  Poor  pauper !  However,  he  makes 
a  little  profit  on  the  fluctuations  in  the  coinage 
of  the  States  round  him,  for  every  small  king 
seems  to  have  the  privilege  of  striking  his  own 
image  and  inflicting  the  Great  Exchange  Ques- 
tion on  his  subjects.  It  is  a  poor  State  that  has 
not  two  seers  and  five  different  rupees. 

From  a  criminal  point  of  view,  Ajmir  is  not 
a  pleasant  place.  The  Native  States  lie  all 
round  and  about  it,  and  portions  of  the  district 
are  ten  miles  off,  Native  State-locked  on  every 
side.  Thus  the  criminal,  who  may  be  a  bur- 
glarious Meena  lusting  for  the  money  bags  of  the 
Setts,  or  a  Peshawari  down  south  on  a  cold 
weather  tour,  has  his  plan  of  campaign  much 
simplified.  The  Englishman  made  only  a  short 
stay  in  the  town,  hearing  that  there  was  to  be  a 
ceremony — tamasha  covers  a  multitude  of 
things — at  the  capital  of  His  Highness  the 
Maharana  of  Udaipur — a  town  some  hundred 
and  eighty  miles  south  of  Ajmir,  not  known 
to  many  people  beyond  Viceroys  and  their  Staffs 
and  the  officials  of  the  Rajputana  Agency.  So 
he  took  a  Neemuch  train  in  the  very  early  morn- 
ing and,  with  the  Punjabi,  went  due  south  to 
Chitor,  the  point  of  departure  for  Udaipur.  In 
time  the  Aravalis  gave  place  to  a  dead,  flat, 
stone-strewn  plain,  thick  with  dhak-jungle. 


58  Letters  of  Marque 

Later  the  date-palm  fraternised  with  the  dhak, 
and  low  hills  stood  on  either  side  of  the  line. 
To  this  succeeded  a  tract  rich  in  pure  white 
stone,  the  line  was  ballasted  with  it.  Then 
came  more  low  hills,  each  with  comb  of  splin- 
tered rock  a-top,  overlooking  dhak- jungle  and 
villages  fenced  with  thorns — places  that  at  once 
declared  themselves  tigerish.  Last,  the  huge 
bulk  of  Chitor  showed  itself  on  the  horizon.  The 
train  crossed  the  Gumber  River  and  halted  al- 
most in  the  shadow  of  the  hills  on  which  the  old 
pride  of  Udaipur  was  set. 

It  is  difficult  to  give  an  idea  of  the  Chitor 
fortress ;  but  the  long  line  of  brown  wall  spring- 
ing out  of  bush-covered  hill  suggested  at  once 
those  pictures,  such  as  the  Graphic  publishes, 
of  the  Inflexible  or  the  Devastation — gigantic 
men-of-war  with  a  very  low  free-board  plough- 
ing through  green  sea.  The  hill  on  which  the 
fort  stands  is  ship-shaped  and  some  miles  long, 
and,  from  a  distance,  every  inch  appears  to  be 
scarped  and  guarded.  But  there  was  no  time 
to  see  Chitor.  The  business  of  the  day  was  to 
get,  if  possible,  to  Udaipur  from  Chitor  Station, 
which  was  composed  of  one  platform,  one  tele- 
graph-room, a  bench  and  several  vicious  dogs. 

The  State  of  Udaipur  is  as  backward  as  Jey- 
pore  is  advanced — if  we  judge  it  by  the  stand- 


Letters   of  Marque  59 

ard  of  civilisation.  It  does  not  approve  of  the 
incursions  of  Englishmen,  and,  to  do  it  justice, it 
thoroughly  succeeds  in  conveying  its  silent  sulki- 
ness.  Still,  where  there  is  one  English  Kesi- 
dent,  one  Doctor,  one  Engineer,  one  Settlement 
Officer  and  one  Missionary,  there  must  be  a  mail 
at  least  once  a  day.  There  was  a  mail  The 
Englishman,  men  said,  might  go  by  it  if  he 
liked,  or  \Q  might  not.  Then,  with  a  great  sink- 
ing of  the  heart,  he  began  to  realise  that  his  caste 
was  of  no  value  in  the  stony  pastures  of  Mewar, 
among  the  swaggering  gentlemen  who  were  so 
lavishly  adorned  with  arms.  There  was  a  mail, 
the  ghost  of  a  tonga,  with  tattered  side-cloths 
and  patched  roof,  inconceivably  filthy  within 
and  without,  and  it  was  Her  Majesty's.  There 
was  another  tonga — an  aram  tonga — but  the 
Englishman  was  not  to  have  it.  It  was  reserved 
for  a  Rajput  Thakur  who  was  going  to  Udaipur 
with  his  "  tail."  The  Thakur,  in  claret-coloured 
velvet  with  a  blue  turban,  a  revolver — Army 
pattern — a  sword,  and  five  or  six  friends,  also 
with  swords,  came  by  and  endorsed  the  state- 
ment. !N"ow,  the  mail  tonga  had  a  wheel  which 
was  destined  to  become  the  Wheel  of  Fate,  and 
to  lead  to  many  curious  things.  Two  diseased 
yellow  ponies  were  extracted  from  a  dung-hill 
and  yoked  to  the  tonga ;  and  after  due  delibera- 


60  Letters  of  Marque 

tion  Her  Majesty's  mail  started,  the  Thakur  fol- 
lowing. 

In  twelve  hours,  or  thereabouts,  the  seventy 
miles  between  Chitor  and  Udaipur  would  be  ac- 
complished. Behind  the  tonga  cantered  an 
armed  sowar.  He  was  the  guard.  The  Thakur's 
tonga  came  up  with  a  rush,  ran  deliberately 
across  the  bows  of  the  Englishman,  shipped  a 
pony,  and  passed  on.  One  lives  and  learns.  The 
Thakur  seems  to  object  to  following  the  for- 
eigner. 

At  the  halting-stages,  once  in  every  six  miles, 
that  is  to  say,  the  ponies  were  carefully  un- 
dressed and  all  their  accoutrements  fitted  more 
or  less  accurately  on  to  the  backs  of  the  ponies 
that  might  happen  to  be  near :  the  released  ani- 
mals finding  their  way  back  to  their  stables 
alone  and  unguided.  There  were  no  syces.,  and 
the  harness  hung  on  by  special  dispensation  of 
Providence.  Still  the  ride  over  a  good  road, 
driven  through  a  pitilessly  stony  country,  had 
its  charms  for  a  while.  At  sunset  the  low  hills 
turned  to  opal  and  wine-red,  and  the  brown 
dust  flew  up  pure  gold ;  for  the  tonga  was  run- 
ning straight  into  the  sinking  sun.  Now  and 
again  would  pass  a  traveller  on  a  camel,  or  a 
gang  of  Bunjarras  with  their  pack-bullocks  and 
their  women ;  and  the  sun  touched  the  brasses  of 


Letters   of  Marque  61 

their  swords  and  guns  till  the  poor  wretches 
seemed  rich  merchants  come  back  from  travel- 
ling with  Sindbad. 

On  a  rock  on  the  right  hand  side,  thirty-four 
great  vultures  were  gathered  over  the  carcase  of 
a  steer.  And  this  was  an  evil  omen.  They  made 
unseemly  noises  as  the  tonga  passed,  and  a  raven 
came  out  of  a  bush  on  the  right  and  answered 
them.  To  crown  all,  one  of  the  hide  and  skin  castes 
sat  on  the  left  hand  side  of  the  road,  cutting 
up  some  of  the  flesh  that  he  had  stolen  from  the 
vultures.  Could  a  man  desire  three  more  in- 
auspicious signs  for  a  night's  travel?  Twilight 
came,  and  the  hills  were  alive  with  strange 
noises,  as  the  red  moon,  nearly  at  her  full,  rose 
over  Chitor.  To  the  low  hills  of  the  mad  geolog- 
ical formation,  the  tumbled  strata  that  seem  to 
obey  no  law,  succeeded  level  ground,  the  pasture 
lands  of  Mewar,  cut  by  the  Beruch  and  Wyan, 
streams  running  over  smooth  water-worn  rock, 
and,  as  the  heavy  embankments  and  ample  water- 
ways showed,  very  lively  in  the  rainy  season. 

In  this  region  occurred  the  last  and  most  in- 
auspicious omen  of  all.  Something  had  gone 
wrong  with  a  crupper,  a  piece  of  blue  and  white 
punkah-cord.  The  Englishman  pointed  it  out, 
and  the  driver,  descending,  danced  on  that  lonely 
road  an  unholy  dance,  singing  the  while: — 


62  Letters  of  Marque 

"The  dumchi!  The  dumchi!  The  dumchi!" 
in  a  shrill  voice.  Then  he  returned  and  drove 
on,  while  the  Englishman  wondered  into  what 
land  of  lunatics  he  was  heading.  At  an  aver- 
age speed  of  six  miles  an  hour,  it  is  possible  to 
see  a  great  deal  of  the  country;  and,  under 
brilliant  moonlight,  Mewar  was  desolately  beau- 
tiful. There  was  no  night  traffic  on  the  road — 
no  one  except  the  patient  sowar,  his  shadow 
an  inky  blot  on  white,  cantering  twenty  yards 
behind.  Once  the  tonga  strayed  into  a  company 
of  date-trees  that  fringed  the  path,  and  once 
rattled  through  a  little  town,  and  once  the  ponies 
shyed  at  what  the  driver  said  was  a  rock ;  but  it 
jumped  up  in  the  moonlight  and  went  away. 

Then  came  a  great  blasted  heath  whereon 
nothing  was  more  than  six  inches  high — a  wilder- 
ness covered  with  grass  and  low  thorn;  and 
here,  as  nearly  as  might  be  midway  between 
Chitor  and  Udaipur,  the  Wheel  of  Fate,  which 
had  been  for  some  time  beating  against  the  side 
of  the  tonga,  came  off,  and  Her  Majesty's  Mails, 
two  bags  including  parcels,  collapsed  on  the  way 
side;  while  the  Englishman  repented  him  that 
he  had  neglected  the  omens  of  the  vultures  and 
the  raven,  the  low  caste  man  and  the  mad  driver. 

There  was  a  consultation  and  an  examination 
of  the  wheel;  but  the  whole  tonga  was  rotten, 


Letters  of  Marque  63 

and  the  axle  was  smashed  and  the  axle-pins  were 
bent  and  nearly  red-hot.  "  It  is  nothing/7  said 
the  driver,  "  the  mail  often  does  this.  What 
is  a  wheel?"  He  took  a  big  stone  and  began 
hammering  the  wheel  proudly  on  the  tyre,  to 
show  that  that  at  least  was  sound.  A  hasty  court- 
martial  revealed  that  there  was  absolutely  not 
one  single  "  breakdown  tonga  "  on  the  whole 
road  between  Chitor  and  Udaipur. 

Now  this  wilderness  was  so  utterly  waste  that 
not  even  the  barking  of  a  dog  or  the  sound  of  a 
nightfowl  could  be  heard.  Luckily  the  Thakur 
had,  some  twenty  miles  back,  stepped  out  to 
smoke  by  the  roadside,  and  his  tonga  had  been 
passed  meanwhile.  The  sowar  was  sent  back  to 
find  that  tonga  and  bring  it  on.  He  cantered 
into  the  haze  of  the  moonlight  and  disappeared. 
Then  said  the  driver : — "  Had  there  been  no 
tonga  behind  us,  I  should  have  put  the  mails  on 
a  horse,  because  the  Sirkar's  dak  cannot  stop." 
The  Englishman  sat  down  upon  the  parcels-bag, 
for  he  felt  that  there  was  trouble  coming.  The 
driver  looked  East  and  West  and  said : — "  I  too 
will  go  and  see  if  the  tonga  can  be  found,  for 
the  Sirkar's  dak  cannot  stop.  Meantime,  Oh 
Sahib,  do  you  take  care  of  the  mails — one  bag 
and  one  bag  of  parcels."  So  he  ran  swiftly  into 
the  haze  of  the  moonlight  and  was  lost,  and  the 


64  Letters  of  Marque 

Englishman  was  left  alone  in  charge  of  Her 
Majesty's  Mails,  two  unhappy  ponies  and  a  lop- 
sided tonga.  He  lit  fires,  for  the  night  was  bit- 
terly cold,  and  only  mourned  that  he  could  not 
destroy  the  whole  of  the  territories  of  His  High- 
ness the  Maharana  of  Udaipur.  But  he  man- 
aged to  raise  a  very  fine  blaze,  before  he  re- 
flected that  all  this  trouble  was  his  own  fault 
for  wandering  into  Native  States  undesirous  of 
Englishmen. 

The  ponies  coughed  dolorously  from  time  to 
time,  but  they  could  not  lift  the  weight  of  a 
dead  silence  that  seemed  to  be  crushing  the 
earth.  After  an  interval  measurable  by  cen- 
turies, sowar,  driver  and  Thakur's  tonga  re- 
appeared; the  latter  full  to  the  brim  and  bub- 
bling over  with  humanity  and  bedding.  "  We 
will  now,"  said  the  driver,  not  deigning  to  notice 
the  Englishman  who  had  been  on  guard  over  the 
mails,  "  put  the  Sirkar's  dak  into  this  tonga  and 
go  forward."  Amiable  heathen!  He  was  going, 
he  said  so,  to  leave  the  Englishman  to  wait  in 
the  Sahara,  for  certainly  thirty  hours  and  per- 
haps forty-eight.  Tongas  are  scarce  on  the 
TJdaipur  road.  There  are  a  few  occasions  in 
life  when  it  is  justifiable  to  delay  Her  Majesty's 
Mails.  This  was  one  of  them.  Seating  himself 
upon  the  parcels-bag,  the  Englishman  cried  in 


Letters  of  Marque  65 

what  was  intended  to  be  a  very  terrible  voice, 
but  the  silence  soaked  it  up  and  left  only  a  thin 
trickle  of  sound,  that  any  one  who  touched  the 
bags  wculd  be  hit  with  a  stick,  several  times, 
over  the  Iiead.  The  bags  were  the  only  link  be- 
tween him  and  the  civilisation  he  had  so  rashly 
foregone.  And  there  was  a  pause. 

The  Thakur  put  his  head  out  of  the  tonga  and 
spoke  shrilly  in  Mewari.  The  Englishman  re- 
plied in  English-Urdu.  The  Thakur  withdrew 
his  head,  and  from  certain  grunts  that  followed 
seemed  to  be  wakening  his  retainers.  Then  two 
men  fell  sleepily  out  of  the  tonga  and  walked 
into  the  night.  "  Come  in,"  said  the  Thakur, 
"  you  and  your  baggage.  My  banduq  is  in  that 
corner ;  be  careful."  The  Englishman,  taking  a 
mail-bag  in  one  hand  for  safety's  sake — the 
wilderness  inspires  an  Anglo-Indian  Cockney 
with  unreasoning  fear — climbed  into  the  tonga, 
which  was  then  loaded  far  beyond  Plimsoll 
mark,  and  the  procession  resumed  its  journey. 
Every  one  in  the  vehicle, — it  seemed  as  full  as 
the  railway  carriage  that  held  Alice.  Through 
the  Looking  Glass — was  Sahib  and  Hazur.  Ex- 
cept the  Englishman.  He  was  simple  turn,  and 
a  revolver,  Army  pattern,  was  printing  every 
diamond  in  the  chequer-work  of  its  handle,  into 
his  right  hip.  When  men  desired  him  to  move, 


66  Letters  of  Marque 

they  prodded  him  with  the  handles  of  tulwars 
till  they  had  coiled  him  into  an  uneasy  lump. 
Then  they  slept  upon  him,  or  cannoned  against 
him  as  the  tonga  bumped.  It  was  an  aram  tonga 
or  tonga  for  ease.  That  was  the  bitterest 
thought  of  all. 

In  due  season  the  harness  began  to  break  once 
every  five  minutes,  and  the  driver  vowed  that 
the  wheels  would  give  way  also. 

After  eight  hours  in  one  position,  it  is  ex- 
cessively difficult  to  walk,  still  more  difficult  to 
climb  up  an  unknown  road  into  a  dak-bunga- 
low ;  but  he  who  has  sought  sleep  on  an  arsenal 
and  under  the  bodies  of  burly  Rajputs,  can  do 
it.  The  grey  dawn  brought  Udaipur  and  a 
French  bedstead.  As  the  tonga  jingled  away, 
the  Englishman  heard  the  familiar  crack  of 
broken  harness.  So  he  was  not  the  Jonah  he 
had  been  taught  to  consider  himself  all  through 
that  night  of  penance! 

A  jackal  sat  in  the  verandah  and  howled  him 
to  sleep,  wherein  he  dreamed  that  he  had  caught 
a  Viceroy  under  the  walls  of  Chitor  and  beaten 
him  with  a  tulwar  till  he  turned  into  a  dak-pony 
whose  near  foreleg  was  perpetually  coming  off, 
and  who  would  say  nothing  but  um  when  he  was 
asked  why  he  had  not  built  a  railway  from  Chi- 
tor to  Udaipur. 


Letters  of  Marque  67 


VII. 

Touching  the  Children  of  the  Sun  and  their 
City,  and  the  Hat-marked  Caste  and  their 
Merits,  and  a  Good  Mans  Works  in  the 
Wilderness. 

IT  was  worth  a  night's  discomfort  and  a  re- 
volver-bed to  sleep  upon — this  city  of  the 
Suryavansi,  hidden  among  the  hills  that  en- 
compass the  great  Pichola  lake.  Truly,  the 
King  who  governs  to-day  is  wise  in  his  determi- 
nation to  have  no  railroad  to  his  capital.  His 
predecessor  was  more  or  less  enlightened,  and 
had  he  lived  a  few  years  longer,  would  have 
brought  the  iron  horse  through  the  Dobarri — the 
green  gate  which  is  the  entrance  of  the  Girwa 
or  girdle  of  hills  round  Udaipur ;  and,  with  the 
train,  would  have  come  the  tourist  who  would 
have  scratched  his  name  upon  the  Temple  of 
Gam  da  and  laughed  horse-laughs  upon  the  lake. 
Let  us,  therefore,  be  thankful  that  the  capital 
of  Mewar  is  hard  to  reach,  and  go  abroad  into 
a  new  and  a  strange  land  rejoicing. 

Each  man  who  has  any  claims  to  respecta- 
bility walks  armed,  carrying  his  tulwar  sheathed 


68  Letters  of  Marque 

in  his  hand,  or  hung  by  a  short  sling  of  cotton 
passing  over  the  shoulder,  under  his  left  arm- 
pit. His  matchlock,  or  smooth-bore  if  he  has 
one,  is  borne  naked  on  the  shoulder. 

Now  it  is  possible  to  carry  any  number  of 
lethal  weapons  without  being  actually  dan- 
gerous. An  unhandy  revolver,  for  instance,  may 
be  worn  for  years,  and,  at  the  end,  accomplish 
nothing  more  noteworthy  than  the  murder  of 
its  owner.  But  the  Rajput's  weapons  are  not 
meant  for  display.  The  Englishman  caught  a 
camel-driver  who  talked  to  him  in  Mewari, 
which  is  a  heathenish  dialect,  something  like 
Multani  to  listen  to;  and  the  man,  very  grace- 
fully and  courteously,  handed  him  his  sword 
and  matchlock,  the  latter  a  heavy  stump-stock 
arrangement  without  pretence  of  sights.  The 
blade  was  as  sharp  as  a  razor,  and  the  gun  in 
perfect  working  order.  The  coiled  fuse  on  the 
stock  was  charred  at  the  end,  and  the  curled 
ram's-horn  powder-horn  opened  as  readily  as  a 
whisky-flask  that  is  much  handled.  Unfor- 
tunately, ignorance  of  Mewari  prevented  con- 
versation; so  the  camel-driver  resumed  his  ac- 
coutrements and  jogged  forward  on  his  beast — 
a  superb  black  one,  with  the  short  curled  Jiub- 
shee  hair — while  the  Englishman  went  to  the 
City,  which  is  built  on  hills  on  the  borders  of 


Letters  of  Marque  69 

the  lake.  By  the  way,  everything  in  Udaipur  is 
built  on  a  hill.  There  is  no  level  ground  in  the 
place,  except  the  Durbar  Gardens,  of  which 
more  hereafter.  Because  colour  holds  the  eye 
more  than  form,  the  first  thing  noticeable  was 
neither  temple  nor  fort,  but  an  ever-recurring 
picture,  painted  in  the  rudest  form  of  native 
art,  of  a  man  on  horseback  armed  with  a  lance, 
charging  an  elephant-of-war.  As  a  rule,  the 
elephant  was  depicted  on  one  side  the  house- 
door  and  the  rider  on  the  other.  There  was  no 
representation  of  an  army  behind.  The  figures 
stood  alone  upon  the  whitewash  on  house  and  wall 
and  gate,  again  and  again  and  again.  A  highly 
intelligent  priest  grunted  that  it  was  a  tazwir; 
a  private  of  the  Maharana's  regular  army  sug- 
gested that  it  was  a  hathi;  while  a  wheat-seller, 
his  sword  at  his  side,  was  equally  certain  that  it 
was  a  Raja.  Beyond  that  point,  his  knowledge 
did  not  go.  The  explanation  of  the  picture  is 
this.  In  the  days  when  Raja  Maun  of  Amber 
put  his  sword  at  Akbar's  sevice  and  won  for 
him  great  kingdoms,  Akbar  sent  an  army 
against  Mewar,  whose  then  ruler  was  Pertap 
Singh,  most  famous  of  all  the  princes  of  Mewar. 
Selim,  Akbar's  son,  led  the  army  of  the  Toork ; 
the  Rajputs  met  them  at  the  pass  of  Huldighat 
and  fought  till  one-half  of  their  bands  were 


70  Letters  of  Marque 

slain.  Once,  in  the  press  of  battle,  Pertap,  on 
his  great  horse,  "Chytak,"  carne  within  striking 
distance  of  Selim's  elephant,  and  slew  the  ma- 
hout, but  Selim  escaped,  to  become  Jehangir 
afterwards,  and  the  Kajputs  were  broken.  That 
was  three  hundred  years  ago,  and  men  have  re- 
duced the  picture  to  a  sort  of  diagram  that  the 
painter  dashes  in,  in  a  few  minutes,  without, 
it  would  seem,  knowing  what  he  is  commemorat- 
ing. Elsewhere,  the  story  is  drawn  in  line  even 
more  roughly. 

Thinking  of  these  things,  the  Englishman 
made  shift  to  get  at  the  City,  and  presently 
came  to  a  tall  gate,  the  gate  of  the  Sun,  on  which 
the  elephant-spikes,  that  he  had  seen  rotted  with 
rust  at  Amber,  were  new  and  pointed  and  effec- 
tive. The  City  gates  are  said  to  be  shut  at  night, 
and  there  is  a  story  of  a  Viceroy's  Guard-of- 
Honour  which  arrived  before  daybreak,  being 
compelled  to  crawl  ignominiously  man  by  man 
through  a  little  wicket  gate,  while  the  horses  had 
to  wait  without  till  sunrise.  But  a  civilised 
yearning  for  the  utmost  advantages  of  octroi, 
and  not  a  fierce  fear  of  robbery  and  wrong,  is 
at  the  bottom  of  the  continuance  of  this  custom. 
The  walls  of  the  City  are  loopholed  for 
musketry,  but  there  seem  to  be  no  mountings 
for  guns,  and  the  moat  without  the  walls  is  dry 


Letters  of  Marque  71 

and  gives  cattle  pasture.  Coarse  rubble  in  con- 
crete faced  with  stone,  makes  the  walls  moder- 
ately strong. 

Internally,  the  City  is  surprisingly  clean, 
though  with  the  exception  of  the  main  street, 
paved  after  the  fashion  of  Jullundur,  of  which, 
men  say,  the  pavement  was  put  down  in  the  time 
of  Alexander  and  worn  by  myriads  of  naked  feet 
into  deep  barrels  and  grooves.  In  the  case  of 
Udaipur,  the  feet  of  the  passengers  have  worn 
the  rock  veins  that  crop  out  everywhere,  smooth 
and  shiny;  and  in  the  rains  the  narrow  gullies 
must  spout  like  fire-hoses.  The  people  have 
been  untouched  by  cholera  for  four  years — 
proof  that  Providence  looks  after  those  who  do 
not  look  after  themselves,  for  Neemuch  Canton- 
ment, a  hundred  miles  away,  suffered  grievously 
last  summer.  "  And  what  do  you  make  in  Udai- 
pur ?"  "  Swords,"  said  the  man  in  the  shop, 
throwing  down  an  armful  of  tulwars,  kuttars 
and  Jchandas  on  the  stones.  "  Do  you  want  any  ? 
Look  here!"  Hereat,  he  took  up  one  of  the 
commoner  swords  and  flourished  it  in  the  sun- 
shine. Then  he  bent  it  double,  and,  as  it  sprang 
straight,  began  to  make  it  "  speak."  Arm- 
vendors  in  Udaipur  are  a  genuine  race,  for  they 
sell  to  people  who  really  use  their  wares.  The 
man  in  the  shop  was  rude — distinctly  so.  His 


72  Letters  of  Marque 

first  flush  of  professional  enthusiasm  abated,  he 
took  stock  of  the  Englishman  and  said  calmly : — 
"  What  do  you  want  with  a  sword  ?"  Then  he 
picked  up  his  goods  and  retreated,  while  certain 
small  boys,  who  deserved  a  smacking,  laughed 
riotously  from  the  coping  of  a  little  temple  hard 
by.  Swords  seem  to  be  the  sole  manufacture  of 
the  place.  At  least,  none  of  the  inhabitants  the 
Englishman  spoke  to  could  think  of  any  other. 

There  is  a  certain  amount  of  personal  violence 
in  and  about  the  State,  or  else  where  would  be 
the  good  of  the  weapons  ?  There  are  occasionally 
dacoitiesAM&e  or  less  important ;  but  these  are 

^9HQr 

not  often  near d  of  and,  indeed,  there  is  no 
special  reason  why  they  should  be  dragged  into 
the  light  of  an  unholy  publicity,  for  the  land 
governs  itself  in  its  own  way,  and  is  always  in 
its  own  way,  which  is  by  no  means  ours,  very 
happy.  The  Thakurs  live,  each  in  his  own  cas- 
tle on  some  rock-faced  hill,  much  as  they  lived  in 
the  days  of  Tod;  though  their  chances  of  dis- 
tinguishing themselves,  except  in  the  school, 
sewer,  and  dispensary  line,  are  strictly  limited. 
Nominally,  they  pay  chutoond,  or  a  sixth  of  their 
revenues  to  the  State,  and  are  under  feudal  obli- 
gations to  supply  their  Head  with  so  many 
horsemen  per  thousand  rupees ;  but  whether  the 
chutoond  justifies  its  name  and  what  is  the  exact 


Letters   of  Marque  .73 

extent  of  the  "  tail  "  leviable,  they,  and  perhaps 
the  Rajputana  Agency,  alone  know.  They  are 
quiet,  give  no  trouble  except  to  the  wild  boar, 
and  personally  are  magnificent  men  to  look  at. 
The  Rajput  shows  his  breeding  in  his  hands  and 
feet,  which  are  almost  disproportionately  small, 
and  as  well  shaped  as  those  of  women.  His  stir- 
rups and  sword-handles  are  even  more  unusable 
by  Westerns  than  those  elsewhere  in  India, 
while  the  Bhil's  knife-handle  gives  as  large  a 
grip  as  an  English  one.  Now  the  little  Bhil  is 
an  aborigine  which  is  humiliating  to  think  of. 
His  tongue,  which  may  frequently  be  heard  in 
the  City,  seems  to  possess  some  variant  of  the 
Zulu  click;  which  gives  it  a  weird  and  unearth- 
ly character.  From  the  main  gate  of  the  City 
the  Englishman  climbed  uphill  towards  the 
Palace  and  the  Jugdesh  Temple  built  by  one 
Jaggat  Singh  at  the  beginning  of  the  last  cen- 
tury. This  building  must  be — but  ignorance  is 
a  bad  guide — Jain  in  character.  From  base- 
ment to  the  stone  socket  of  the  temple  flag-staff, 
it  is  carved  in  high  relief  with  friezes  of  ele- 
phants, men,  gods,  and  monsters  in  wearying 
profusion. 

The  management  of  the  temple  have  daubed  a 
large  portion  of  the  building  with  whitewash, 
for  which  their  revenues  should  be  "  cut  "  for 


74:  Letters  of  Marque 

a  year  or  two.  The  main  shrine  holds  a  large 
brazen  image  of  Garuda,  and,  in  the  corners  of 
the  courtyard  of  the  main  pile,  are  shrines  to 
Mahadeo,  and  the  jovial,  pot-bellied  Ganesh. 
There  is  no  repose  in  this  architecture,  and  the 
entire  effect  is  one  of  repulsion ;  for  the  clustered 
figures  of  man  and  brute  seem  always  on  the 
point  of  bursting  into  unclean,  wriggling  life. 
But  it  may  be  that  the  builders  of  this  form  of 
house  desired  to  put  the  fear  of  all  their  many 
gods  into  the  heart  of  the  worshippers. 

From  the  temple  whose  steps  are  worn  smooth 
by  the  feet  of  men,  and  whose  courts  are  full  of 
the  faint  smell  of  stale  flowers  and  old  incense, 
the  Englishman  went  to  the  Palaces  which 
crown  the  highest  hill  overlooking  the  City, 
Here,  too,  whitewash  had  been  unsparingly  ap- 
plied, but  the  excuse  was  that  the  stately  fronts 
and  the  pierced  screens  were  built  of  a  perish- 
able stone  which  needed  protection  against  the 
weather.  One  projecting  window  in  the  facade 
of  the  main  Palace  has  been  treated  with 
Minton  tiles.  Luckily  it  was  too  far  up  the  wall 
for  anything  more  than  the  colour  to  be  visible, 
and  the  pale  blue  against  the  pure  white  was 
effective. 

A  picture  of  Ganesh  looks  out  over  the  main 
courtyard  which  is  entered  by  a  triple  gate,  and 


Letters  of  Marque  75 

hard  by  is  the  place  where  the  King's  elephants 
fight  over  a  low  masonry  wall.  In  the  side  of 
the  hill  on  which  the  Palaces  stand,  is  built 
stabling  for  horses  and  elephants — proof  that 
the  architects  of  old  must  have  understood  their 
business  thoroughly.  The  Palace  is  not  a 
"  show  place,"  and,  consequently,  the  English- 
man did  not  see  much  of  the  interior.  But  he 
passed  through  open  gardens  with  tanks  and  pa- 
vilions, very  cool  and  restful,  till  he  came  sud- 
denly upon  the  Pichola  lake,  and  forgot  alto- 
gether about  the  Palace.  He  found  a  sheet  of 
steel-blue  water,  set  in  purple  and  grey  hills, 
bound  in,  on  one  side,  by  marble  bunds,  the  fair 
white  walls  of  the  Palace,  and  the  grey,  time- 
worn  ones  of  the  city ;  and,  on  the  other,  fading 
away  through  the  white  of  shallow  water,  and 
the  soft  green  of  weed,  marsh,  and  rank-pas- 
tured river  field,  into  the  land.  To  enjoy  open 
water  thoroughly,  live  for  a  certain  number  of 
years  barred  from  anything  better  than  the 
yearly  swell  and  shrinkage  of  one  of  the  Five 
Eivers,  and  then  come  upon  two  and  a  half 
miles  of  solid,  restful  lake,  with  a  cool  wind 
blowing  off  it  and  little  waves  spitting  against 
the  piers  of  a  veritable,  albeit  hideously  ugly, 
boat  house.  On  the  faith  of  an  exile  from  the 
Sea,  you  will  not  stay  long  among  Palaces,  be 


76  Letters  of  Marque 

they  never  so  lovely,  or  in  little  rooms  panelled 
with  Dutch  tiles3  be  these  never  so  rare  and 
curious.  And  here  follows  a  digression.  There 
is  no  life  so  good  as  the  life  of  a  loafer  who 
travels  by  rail  and  road;  for  all  things  and  all 
people  are  kind  to  him.  From  the  chill  miseries 
of  a  dak-bungalow  where  they  slew  one  hen  with 
as  much  parade  as  the  French  guillotined  Pran- 
zini,  to  the  well-ordered  sumptuousness  of  the 
Residency,  was  a  step  bridged  over  by  kindly  and 
unquestioning  hospitality.  So  it  happened  that 
the  Englishman  was  not  only  able  to  go  upon 
the  lake  in  a  soft-cushioned  boat,  with  every- 
thing handsome  about  him,  but  might,  had  he 
chosen,  have  killed  wild-duck  with  which  the 
lake  swarms. 

The  mutter  of  water  under  a  boat's  nose  was 
a  pleasant  thing  to  hear  once  more.  Starting  at 
the  head  of  the  lake,  he  found  himself  shut  out 
from  sight  of  the  main  sheet  of  water  in  a  loch 
bounded  by  a  sunk,  broken  bund  to  steer  across 
which  was  a  matter  of  some  nicety.  Beyond 
that  lay  a  second  pool  spanned  by  a  narrow- 
arched  bridge  built,  men  said,  long  before  the 
City  of  the  Rising  Sun,  which  is  little  more  than 
three  hundred  years  old.  The  bridge  connects 
the  City  with  Brahmapura — a  white-walled  en- 
closure filled  with  many  Brahmins  and  ringing 


Letters  of  Marque  *11 

with  the  noise  of  their  conches.  Beyond  the 
bridge,  the  body  of  the  lake,  with  the  City  run- 
ning down  to  it,  comes  into  full  view;  and 
Providence  has  arranged  for  the  benefit  of  such 
as  delight  in  colours,  that  the  Rajputni  shall 
wear  the  most  striking  tints  that  she  can  buy  in 
the  bazaars,  in  order  that  she  may  beautify  the 
ghats  where  she  conies  to  bathe. 

The  bathing-ledge  at  the  foot  of  the  City  wall 
was  lighted  with  women  clad  in  raw  vermilion, 
dull  red,  indigo  and  sky-blue,  saffron  and  pink 
and  turquoise;  the  water  faithfully  doubling 
everything.  But  the  first  impression  was  of  the 
unreality  of  the  sight,  for  the  Englishman  found 
himself  thinking  of  the  Simla  Fine  Arts  Exhi- 
bition and  the  overdaring  amateurs  who  had 
striven  to  reproduce  scenes  such  as  these.  Then 
a  woman  rose  up,  and  clasping  her  hands  be- 
hind her  head,  looked  at  the  passing  boat,  and 
the  ripples  spread  out  from  her  waist,  in  blind- 
ing white  silver,  far  across  the  water.  As  a  pic- 
ture, a  daringly  insolent  picture,  it  would  have 
been  superb. 

The  boat  turned  aside  to  shores  where  huge 
turtles  were  lying,  and  a  stork  had  built  heranest, 
big  as  a  hay-cock,  in  a  withered  tree,  and  a  bevy 
of  coots  were  flapping  and  gabbling  in  the  weeds 
or  between  great  leaves  of  the  Victoria  Regia — 


78  Letters  of  Marque 

an  "  escape  "  from  the  Durbar  Gardens.  Here 
were,  as  Mandeville  hath  it,  "  all  manner  of 
strange  fowle " — divers  and  waders,  after 
their  kind,  kingfishers  and  snaky-necked  birds 
of  the  cormorant  family,  but  no  duck.  They 
had  seen  the  guns  in  the  boat  and  were  flying  to 
and  fro  in  companies  across  the  lake,  or  settling, 
wise  birds,  in  the  glare  of  the  sun  on  the  water. 
The  lake  was  swarming  with  them,  but  they 
seemed  to  know  exactly  how  far  a  twelve-bore 
would  carry.  Perhaps  their  knowledge  had  been 
gained  from  the  Englishman  at  the  Residency. 
Later,  as  the  sun  left  the  lake  and  the  hills  be- 
gan to  glow  like  opals,  the  boat  made  her  way 
to  the  shallow  side  of  the  lake,  through  fields 
of  watergrass  and  dead  lotus-raffle  that  rose  as 
high  as  the  bows,  and  clung  lovingly  about  the 
rudder,  and  parted  with  the  noise  of  silk  when  it 
is  torn.  There  she  waited  for  the  fall  of  twilight 
when  the  duck  would  come  home  to  bed,  and  the 
Englishman  sprawled  upon  the  cushions  in  deep 
content  and  laziness,  as  he  looked  across  to 
where  two  marble  Palaces  floated  upon  the 
waters,  and  saw  all  the  glory  and  beauty  of  the 
City,  and  wondered  whether  Tod,  in  cocked  hat 
and  stiff  stock,  had  ever  come  shooting  among 
the  reeds,  and,  if  so,  how  in  the  world  he  had 
ever  managed  to  bowl  over. 


Letters  of  Marque  79 

"  Duck  and  drake,  by  Jove !  Confiding  beasts, 
weren't  they?  Hi!  Lalla,  jump  out  and 
get  them!7'  It  was  a  brutal  thing,  this  double- 
barrelled  murder  perpetrated  in  the  silence  of 
the  marsh  when  the  kingly  wild-duck  came  back 
from  his  wanderings  with  his  mate  at  his  side, 
but — but — the  birds  were  very  good  to  eat. 
After  this  and  many  other  slaughters  had  been 
accomplished,  the  boat  went  back  in  the  full 
dusk,  down  narrow  water-lanes  and  across  belts 
of  weed,  disturbing  innumerable  fowl  on  the 
road,  till  she  reached  open  water  and  "  the 
moon  like  a  rick  afire  was  rising  over  the  dale," 
and — it  was  not  the  "  whit,  whit,  whit  "  of  the 
nightingale  but  the  stately  ff  honk,  honJc  "  of 
some  wild  geese,  thanking  their  stars  that  these 
pestilent  shikaris  were  going  away. 

If  the  Venetian  owned  the  Pichola  Sagar  he 
might  say  with  justice : — "  See  it  and  die."  But 
it  is  better  to  live  and  go  to  dinner,  and  strike 
into  a  new  life — that  of  the  men  who  bear  the 
hat-mark  on  their  brow  as  plainly  as  the  well- 
born native  carries  the  trisul  of  Shiva. 

They  are  of  the  same  caste  as  the  toilers  on 
the  Frontier — tough,  bronzed  men,  with  wrin- 
kles at  the  corners  of  the  eyes,  gotten  by  looking 
across  much  sun-glare.  When  they  would  speak 
of  horses  they  mention  Arab  ponies,  and  their 


80  Letters  of  Marque 

talk,  for  the  most  part,  drifts  Bombay-wards,  or 
to  Abu,  which  is  their  Simla.  By  these  things 
the  traveller  may  see  that  he  is  far  away  from 
the  Presidency;  and  will  presently  learn  that 
he  is  in  a  land  where  the  railway  is  an  incident 
and  not  an  indispensable  luxury.  Folk  tell 
strange  stories  of  drives  in  bullock-carts  in  the 
rains,  of  break-downs  in  nullahs  fifty  miles  from 
everywhere,  and  of  elephants  that  used  to  sink 
"  for  rest  and  refreshment "  half-way  across 
swollen  streams.  Every  place  here  seems  fifty 
miles  from  everywhere,  and  the  "  legs  of  a 
horse  "  are  regarded  as  the  only  natural  means 
of  locomotion.  Also,  and  this  to  the  Indian 
Cockney  who  is  accustomed  to  the  bleached  or 
office  man  is  curious,  there  are  to  be  found  many 
veritable  "  tiger  men  " — not  story-spinners  but 
such  as  have,  in  their  wanderings  from  Bikaneer 
to  Indore,  dropped  their  tiger  in  the  way  of 
business.  They  are  enthusiastic  over  prince- 
lings of  little  known  fiefs,  lords  of  austere 
estates  perched  on  the  tops  of  unthrifty  hills, 
hard  riders  and  good  sportsmen.  And  five,  six, 
yes  fully  nine  hundred  miles  to  the  northward, 
lives  the  sister  branch  of  the  same  caste — the 
men  who  swear  by  Pathan,  Biluch  and  Brahui, 
with  whom  they  have  shot  or  broken  bread. 
There  is  a  saying  in  Upper  India  that  the 


Letters   of  Marque  81 

more  desolate  the  country  the  greater  the  cer- 
tainty of  finding  a  Padre-Sahib.  The  proverb 
seems  to  hold  good  in  Udaipur,  where  the 
Scotch  Presbyterian  Mission  have  a  post,  and 
others  at  Todgarh  to  the  north  and  elsewhere. 
To  arrive,  under  Providence,  at  the  cure  of  souls 
through  the  curing  of  bodies  certainly  seems  the 
most  rational  method  of  conversion ;  and  this  is 
exactly  what  the  Missions  are  doing.  Their 
Padre  in  Udaipur  is  also  an  M.  D.,  and  of  him 
a  rather  striking  tale  is  told.  Conceiving  that 
the  City  could  bear  another  hospital  in  addition 
to  the  State  one,  he  took  furlough,  went  home, 
and  there,  by  crusade  and  preaching,  raised 
sufficient  money  for  the  scheme,  so  that  none 
might  say  that  he  was  beholden  to  the  State.  Re- 
turning, he  built  his  hospital,  a  very  model  of 
neatness  and  comfort  and,  opening  the  opera- 
tion-book, announced  his  readiness  to  see  any 
one  and  every  one  who  was  sick.  How  the  call 
was  and  is  now  responded  to,  the  dry  records  of 
that  book  will  show ;  and  the  name  of  the  Padre- 
Sahib  is  honoured,  as  these  ears  have  heard, 
throughout  Udaipur  and  far  around.  The  faith 
that  sends  a  man  into  the  wilderness,  and  the 
secular  energy  which  enables  him  to  cope  with 
an  evergrowing  demand  for  medical  aid,  must, 
in  time,  find  their  reward.  If  patience  and  un- 


82  Letters  of  Marque 

wearying  self-sacrifice  carry  any  merit,  they 
should  do  so  soon.  To-day  the  people  are  will- 
ing enough  to  be  healed,  and  the  general  in- 
fluence of  the  Padre-Sahib  is  very  great.  But 
beyond  that ....  Still  it  was  impossible  to  judge 
aright. 


Letters  of  Marque  83 


VIII. 

Divers  Passages  of  Speech  and  Action  whence 
the  Nature,  Arts  and  Disposition  of  the  King 
and  his  Subjects  may  be  observed. 

IN  this  land  men  tell  "  sad  stories  of  the 
death  of  Kings,"  not  easily  found  elsewhere ; 
and  also  speak  of  sati,  which  is  generally  sup- 
posed to  be  an  "  effete  curiosity  "  as  the  Ben- 
gali said,  in  a  manner  which  makes  it  seem  very 
near  and  vivid.  Be  pleased  to  listen  to  some  of 
the  tales,  but  with  all  the  names  cut  out,  be- 
cause a  King  has  just  as  much  right  to  have  his 
family  affairs  respected  as  has  a  British  house- 
holder paying  income-tax. 

Once  upon  a  time,  that  is  to  say  when  the 
British  power  was  well  established  in  the  land 
and  there  were  railways,  there  was  a  King  who 
lay  dying  for  many  days,  and  all,  including  the 
Englishmen  about  him,  knew  that  his  end  was 
certain.  But  he  had  chosen  to  lie  in  an  outer 
court  or  pleasure-house  of  his  Palace ;  and  with 
him  were  some  twenty  of  his  favourite  wives. 
The  place  in  which  he  lay  was  very  near  to  the 
City ;  and  there  was  a  fear  that  his  womenkind 


84  Letters  of  Marque 

should,  on  his  death,  going  mad  with  grief,  cast 
off  their  veils  and  run  out  into  the  streets,  un- 
covered before  all  men.  In  which  case,  nothing, 
not  even  the  power  of  the  Press,  and  the  loco- 
motive, and  the  telegraph,  and  cheap  education 
and  enlightened  municipal  councils,  could  have 
saved  them  from  sati,  for  they  were  the  wives 
of  a  King.  So  the  Political  did  his  best  to  in- 
duce the  dying  man  to  go  to  the  Fort  of  the 
City,  a  safe  place  close  to  the  regular  zenana, 
where  all  the  women  could  be  kept  within  walls. 
He  said  that  the  air  was  better  in  the  Fort,  but 
the  King  refused;  and  that  he  would  recover 
in  the  Fort ;  but  the  King  refused.  After  some 
days,  the  latter  turned  and  said : — "Why  are  you 
so  keen,  Sahib,  upon  getting  my  old  bones  up 
to  the  Fort?"  Driven  to  his  last  defences,  the 
Political  said  simply :  —  "  Well,  Maharana 
Sahib,  the  place  is  close  to  the  road  you  see, 
and .  .  .  . "  The  King  saw  and  said : — "  Oh, 
that's  it !  I've  been  puzzling  my  brain  for  four 
days  to  find  out  what  on  earth  you  were  driving 
at.  I'll  go  to-night."  "  But  there  may  be  some 
difficulty,"  began  the  Political.  "  You  think 
so,"  said  the  King.  "  If  I  only  hold  up  my  lit- 
tle finger,  the  women  will  obey  me.  Go  now, 
and  come  back  in  five  minutes,  and  all  will  be 


Letters  of  Marque  85 

ready  for  departure."  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the 
Political  withdrew  for  the  space  of  fifteen  min- 
utes, and  gave  orders  that  the  conveyances 
which  he  had  kept  in  readiness  day  and  night 
should  be  got  ready.  In  fifteen  minutes  those 
twenty  women,  with  their  hand-maidens,  were 
packed  and  ready  for  departure  5  and  the  King 
died  later  at  the  Fort,  and  nothing  happened. 
Here  the  Englishman  asked  why  a  frantic 
woman  must  of  necessity  become  sati,  and  felt 
properly  abashed  when  he  was  told  that  she 
must.  There  was  nothing  else  for  her  if  she 
went  out  unveiled  deliberately. 

The  rush-out  forces  the  matter.  And,  indeed, 
if  you  consider  the  matter  from  a  Rajput  point 
of  view,  it  does. 

Then  followed  a  very  grim  tale  of  the  death 
of  another  King;  of  the  long  vigil  by  his  bed- 
side, before  he  was  taken  off  the  bed  to  die  upon 
the  ground;  of  the  shutting  of  a  certain  mys- 
terious door  behind  the  bed-head,  which  shut- 
ting was  followed  by  a  rustle  of  women' r;  dress ; 
of  a  walk  on  the  top  of  the  Palace,  to  escape  the 
heated  air  of  the  sick  room;  and  then,  in  the 
grey  dawn,  the  wail  upon  wail  breaking 
from  the  zenana  as  the  news  of  the  King's  death 
went  in.  "  I  never  wish  to  hear  anything  more 
horrible  and  awful  in  mv  life.  You  could  see 


86  Letters  of  Marque 

nothing.      You     could     only     Hear    the     poor 
wretches !"  said  the  Political  with  a  shiver. 

The  last  resting-place  of  the  Maharanas  of 
Udaipur  is  at  Ahar,  a  little  village  two  miles 
east  of  the  City.  Here  they  go  down  in  their 
robes  of  State,  their  horse  following  behind,  and 
here  the  Political  saw,  after  the  death  of  a 
Maharana,  the  dancing-girls  dancing  before  the 
poor  white  ashes,  the  musicians  playing  among 
the  cenotaphs,  and  the  golden  hookah,  sword 
and  water-vessel  laid  out  for  the  naked  soul 
doomed  to  hover  twelve  days  round  the  funeral 
pyre,  before  it  could  depart  on  its  journey  to- 
wards a  fresh  birth  in  the  endless  circle  of  the 
Wheel  of  Fate.  Once,  in  a  neighboring  State  it 
is  said,  one  of  the  dancing-girls  stole  a  march  in 
the  next  world's  precedence  and  her  lord's  affec- 
tions, upon  the  legitimate  queens.  The  affair 
happened,  by  the  way,  after  the  Mutiny,  and 
was  accomplished  with  great  pomp  in  the  light 
of  day.  Subsequently  those  who  might  have 
stopped  it  but  did  not,  were  severely  punished. 
The  girl  said  that  she  had  no  one  to  look  to  but 
the  dead  man,  and  followed  him,  to  use  Tod's 
formula,  "  through  the  flames."  It  would  be 
curious  to  know  what  is  done  now  and  again 
among  these  lonely  hills  in  the  walled  holds  of 
the  Thakurs. 


Letters  of  Marque  87 

But  to  return  from  the  burning-ground  to 

modern  Udaipur,  as  at  present  worked  under 
the  Maharana  aiid  his  Prime  Minister  Rae 
Punna  Lai,  C.  I.  E.  To  begin  with,  His  High- 
ness is  a  racial  anomaly  in  that,  judged  by  the 
strictest  European  standard,  he  is  a  man  of 
temperate  life,  the  husband  of  one  wife  whom 
he  married  before  he  was  chosen  to  the  throne 
after  the  death  of  the  Maharana  Sujjun  Singh 
in  1884.  Sujjun  Singh  died  childless  and  gave 
no  hint  of  his  desires  as  to  succession  and — 
omitting  all  the  genealogical  and  political  rea- 
sons which  would  drive  a  man  mad — Futteh 
Singh  was  chosen,  by  the  Thakurs,  from  the 
Seorati  Branch  of  the  family  which  Sangram 
Singh  II.  founded.  He  is  thus  a  younger  son 
of  a  younger  branch  of  a  younger  family,  which 
lucid  statement  should  suffice  to  explain  every- 
thing. The  man  who  could  deliberately  unravel 
the  succession  of  any  one  of  the  Rajput  States 
would  be  perfectly  capable  of  clearing  the  poli- 
tics of  all  the  Frontier  tribes  from  Jumrood  to 
Quetta. 

Roughly  speaking,  the  Maharana  and  the 
Prime  Minister — in  whose  family  the  office 
has  been  hereditary  for  many  generations — 
divide  the  power  of  the  State.  They  control, 
more  or  less,  the  Mahand  Raj  Sabha  or  Coimcil 


88  Letters  of  Marque 

of  Direction  and  Revision.  This  is  composed 
of  many  of  the  Rawats  and  Thakurs  of  the 
State,  and  the  Poet  Laureate  who,  under  a  less 
genial  administration,  would  be  presumably 
the  Registrar.  There  are  also  District  Officers, 
Officers  of  Customs,  Superintendents  of  the 
Mint,  Master  of  the  Horses,  and  Supervisor  of 
Doles,  which  last  is  pretty  and  touching.  The 
State  officers  itself,  and  the  Englishman's  inves- 
tigations failed  to  unearth  any  Bengalis.  The 
Commandant  of  the  State  Army,  about  five 
thousand  men  of  all  arms,  is  a  retired  non-com- 
missioned officer,  a  Mr.  Lonergan;  who,  as  the 
medals  on  his  breast  attest,  has  "  done  the  State 
some  service,"  and  now  in  his  old  age  rejoices  in 
the  rank  of  Major-General,  and  teaches  the 
Maharaja's  guns  to  make  uncommonly  good 
practice.  The  infantry  are  smart  and  well  set 
up,  while  the  Cavalry — rare  thing  in  Native 
States — have  a  distinct  notion  of  keeping  their 
accoutrements  clean.  They  are,  further,  well 
mounted  on  light  wiry  Mewar  and  Kathiawar 
horses.  Incidentally,  it  may  be  mentioned  that 
the  Pathan  comes  down  with  his  pickings  from 
the  Punjab  to  Udaipur,  and  finds  a  market 
there  for  animals  that  were  much  better  em- 
ployed in — but  the  complaint  is  a  stale  one. 
Let  us  see,  later  on,  what  the  Jodhpur  stables 


Letters  of  Marque  89 

hold ;  and  then  formulate  an  indictment  against 
the  Government.  So  much  for  the  indigenous 
administration  of  Udaipur.  The  one  drawback 
in  the  present  Maharaja,  from  the  official  point 
of  view,  is  his  want  of  education.  He  is  a 
thoroughly  good  man,  but  was  not  brought  up 
with  a  seat  on  the  guddee  before  his  eyes,  conse- 
quently he  is  not  an  English-speaking  man. 

There  is  a  story  told  of  him,  which  is  worth  the 
repeating.  An  Englishman  who  flattered  him- 
self that  he  could  speak  the  vernacular  fairly 
well,  paid  him  a  visit  and  discoursed  with  a 
round  mouth.  The  Maharana  heard  him  polite- 
ly, and  turning  to  a  satellite,  demanded  a  trans- 
lation ;  which  was  given.  Then  said  the  Maha- 
rana : — "  Speak  to  him  in  Angrezi."  The  An- 
grezi  spoken  by  the  interpreter  was  the  vernacu- 
lar as  the  Sahibs  speak  it,  and  the  Englishman, 
having  ended  his  conference,  departed  abashed. 
But  this  backwardness  is  eminently  suited  to  a 
place  like  Udaipur,  and  a  "  varnished  "  prince 
is  not  always  a  desirable  thing.  The  curious 
and  even  startling  simplicity  of  his  life  is  worth 
preserving.  Here  is  a  specimen  of  one  of  his 
days.  Rising  at  four — and  the  dawn  can  be 
bitterly  chill — he  bathes  and  prays  after  the 
custom  of  his  race,  and  at  six  is  ready  to  take  in 
hand  the  first  instalment  of  the  day's  work 


90  Letters  of  Marque 

which  comes  before  him  through  his  Prime  Min- 
ister, and  occupies  him  for  three  or  four  hours 
till  the  first  meal  of  the  day  is  ready.  At  two 
o'clock  he  attends  the  Mahand  Kaj  Sabha,  and 
works  till  five,  retiring  at  a  healthily  primitive 
hour.  He  is  said  to  have  his  hand  fairly  firmly 
upon  the  reins  of  rule,  and  to  know  as  much  as 
most  monarchs  know  of  the  way  in  which  the 
revenues — about  thirty  lakhs — are  disposed  of. 
The  Prime  Minister's  career  has  been  a 
chequered  and  interesting  one,  including,  inter 
alia,  a  dismissal  from  power  (this  was  worked 
from  behind  the  screen),  and  arrest  and  an  at- 
tack with  words  which  all  but  ended  in  his 
murder.  He  has  not  so  much  power  as  his  pre- 
decessors had,  for  the  reason  that  the  present 
Maharaja  allows  little  but  tiger-shooting  to 
distract  him  from  the  supervision  of  the  State. 
His  Highness,  by  the  way,  is  a  first-class  shot, 
and  has  bagged  eighteen  tigers  already.  He 
preserves  his  game  carefully,  and  permission  to 
kill  tigers  is  not  readily  obtainable. 

A  curious  instance  of  the  old  order  giving 
place  to  the  new  is  in  process  of  evolution  and 
deserves  notice.  The  Prime  Minister's  son, 
Futteh  Lai,  a  boy  of  twenty  years  old,  has  been 
educated  at  the  Mayo  College,  Ajmir,  and 
speaks  and  writes  English.  There  are  few  na- 


Letters  of  Marque  91 

tive  officials  in  the  State  who  do  this;  and  the 
consequence  is  that  the  lad  has  won  a  very  fair 
insight  into  State  affairs,  and  knows  generally 
what  is  going  forward  both  in  the  Eastern  and 
Western  spheres  of  the  little  Court.  In  time  he 
may  qualify  for  direct  administrative  powers, 
and  IJdaipur  will  be  added  to  the  list  of  the 
States  that  are  governed  "  English  fash  "  as 
the  irreverent  Americans  put  it.  What  the  end 
will  be,  after  three  generations  of  Princes  and 
Dewans  have  been  put  through  the  mill  of  Raj- 
kumar  Colleges,  those  who  live  will  learn. 

More  interesting  is  the  question — For  how 
long  can  the  vitality  of  a  people  whose  life  was 
arms  be  suspended  ?  Men  in  the  North  say  that, 
by  the  favour  of  the  Government,  the  Sikh  Sir- 
dars are  rotting  on  their  lands ;  and  the  Rajput 
Thakurs  say  of  themselves  that  they  are  grow- 
ing "  rusty."  The  old,  old  problem  forces  itself 
on  the  most  unrenective  mind  at  every  turn  in 
the  gay  streets  of  Udaipur.  A  Frenchman 
might  write : — "  Behold  there  the  horse  of  the 
Rajput — foaming,  panting,  caracoling,  but  al- 
ways fettered  with  his  head  so  majestic  upon 
his  bosom  so  amply  filled  with  a  generous  heart. 
He  rages,  but  he  does  not  advance.  See  there 
the  destiny  of  the  Rajput  who  bestrides  him, 
and  upon  whose  left  flank  bounds  the  sabre  use- 


92  Letters  of  Marque 

less — the  haberdashery  of  the  iron-monger  only. 
Pity  the  horse  in  reason,  for  that  life  there  is  his 
raison  d'etre.  Pity  ten  thousand  times  more 
the  Rajput,  for  he  has  no  raison  d'etre.  He  is 
an  anachronism  in  a  blue  turban." 

The  Gaul  might  be  wrong,  but  Tod  wrote 
things  which  seem  to  support  this  view,  in  the 
days  when  he  wished  to  make  "  buffer-states  " 
of  the  land  he  loved  so  well. 

Let  us  visit  the  Durbar  Gardens,  where  little 
naked  Cupids  are  trampling  upon  fountains  of 
fatted  fish,  all  in  bronze,  where  there  are  cy- 
presses and  red  paths,  and  a  deer-park  full  of  all 
varieties  of  deer,  besides  two  growling,  fluffy  little 
panther  cubs,  a  black  panther  who  is  the  Prince 
of  Darkness  and  a  gentleman,  and  a  terrace-full 
of  tigers,  bears,  and  Guzerat  lions  bought  from 
the  King  of  Oudh's  sale. 

On  the  best  site  in  the  Gardens  is  rising  the 
Victoria  Hall,  the  foundation-stone  of  which 
was  laid  by  the  Maharana  on  the  21st  of  June 
last.  It  is  built  after  the  designs  of  Mr.  C. 
Thompson,  Executive  Engineer  of  the  State, 
and  will  be  in  the  Hindu-Saracenic  style;  hav- 
ing two  fronts,  west  and  north.  In  the  former 
will  be  the  principal  entrance,  approached  by 
a  flight  of  steps  leading  to  a  handsome  porch  of 
carved  pillars  supporting  stone  beams — the  flat 


Letters  of  Marque  93 

Hindu  arch.  To  the  left  of  the  entrance  hall 
will  be  a  domed  octagonal  tower  eighty  feet 
high,  holding  the  principal  staircase  leading  to 
the  upper  rooms.  A  corridor  on  the  right  of  the 
entrance  will  lead  to  the  museum,  and  immedi- 
ately behind  the  entrance  hall  is  the  reading- 
room,  42  by  24  feet,  and  beyond  it  the  library 
and  office.  To  the  right  of  the  reading-room 
will  be  an  open  courtyard  with  a  fountain  in  the 
centre,  and,  beyond  the  courtyard,  the  museum 
— a  great  hall,  one  hundred  feet  long.  Over  the 
library  and  the  entrance  hall  will  be  private 
apartments  for  the  Maharana,  approached  by  a 
private  staircase.  The  communication  between 
the  two  upper  rooms  will  be  by  a  corridor  run- 
ning along  the  north  front  having  a  parapet  of 
delicately  cut  pillars  and  cusped  arches — the 
latter  filled  in  with  open  tracery.  Pity  it  is  that 
the  whole  of  this  will  have  to  be  whitewashed  to 
protect  the  stone  from  the  weather.  Over  the 
entrance-porch,  and  projecting  from  the  upper 
room,  will  be  a  very  elaborately  cut  balcony  sup- 
ported on  handsome  brackets.  Facing  the  main 
entrance  will  be  a  marble  statue,  nine  feet  high, 
of  the  Queen,  on  a  white  marble  pedestal  ten  feet 
high.  The  statue  is  now  being  made  at  home  by 
Mr.  Birch,  R.  A .  The  cost  of  the  whole  will  be  about 
Es.  80,000.  Now,  it  is  a  curious  thing  that  the 


1)4:  Letters  of  Marque 

statue  of  Her  Majesty  will  be  put  some  eighty 
feet  below  the  level  of  the  great  bund  that  holds 
in  the  Pichola  lake.  But  the  bund  is  a  firm  one 
and  has  stood  for  many  years. 

Another  public  building  deserves  notice,  and 
that  is  the  Walter  Hospital  for  native  women, 
the  foundation-stone  of  which  was  laid  by  the 
Countess  of  Dufferin  on  that  memorable  occa- 
sion when  the  Viceroy,  behind  Artillery  Horses, 
covered  the  seventy  miles  from  Chitor  to  Udai- 
pur  in  under  six  hours.  The  building,  by  the 
same  brain  that  designed  the  hall,  will  be  ready 
for  occupation  in  a  month.  It  is  in  strict  keep- 
ing with  the  canons  of  Hindu  architecture  ex- 
ternally, and  has  a  high,  well-ventilated  waiting- 
room,  out  of  which,  to  the  right,  are  two  wards 
for  in-patients,  and  to  the  left  a  dispensary  and 
consulting-room.  Beyond  these,  again,  is  a  third 
ward  for  in-patients.  In  a  courtyard  behind 
are  a  ward  for  low  caste  patients  and  the  offices. 

When  all  these  buildings  are  completed, 
Udaipur  will  be  dowered  with  three  good  hos- 
pitals, including  the  State's  and  the  Padre's, 
and  a  first  instalment  of  civilisation. 


Letters  of  Marque  95 


IX. 

Of  the  Pig-drive  which  was  a  Panther-killing, 
and  of  the  Departure  to  Chitor. 

ABOVE  the  Durbar  Gardens  lie  low  hills,  in 
which  the  Maharana  keeps,  very  strictly 
guarded,  his  pig  and  his  deer,  and  anything  else 
that  may  find  shelter  in  the  low  scrub  or  under 
the  scattered  boulders.  These  preserves  are 
scientifically  parcelled  out  with  high  red-stone 
walls;  and,  here  and  there,  are  dotted  tiny 
shooting-boxes,  in  the  first  sense  of  the  term — 
masonry  sentry-boxes,  in  which  five  or  six  men 
may  sit  at  ease  and  shoot.  It  had  been  arranged 
— to  entertain  the  Englishmen  who  were  gath- 
ered at  the  Residency  to  witness  the  investiture 
of  the  King  with  the  G.  C.  S.  I. — that  there 
should  be  a  little  pig-drive  in  front  of  the  Kala 
Odey  or  black  shooting-box.  The  Rajput  is  a 
man  and  a  brother,  in  respect  that  he  will  ride, 
shoot,  eat  pig  and  drink  strong  waters  like  an 
Englishman.  Of  the  pig-hunting  he  makes  al- 
most a  religious  duty,  and  of  the  wine-drinking 
no  less.  Read  how  desperately  they  used  to 
ride  in  Udaipur  at  the  beginning  of  the  century 


96  Letters  of  Marque 

when  Tod,  always  in  his  cocked  hat  be  sure, 
counted  up  the  tale  of  accidents  at  the  end  of  the 
day's  sport. 

There  is  something  unfair  in  shooting  pig; 
but  each  man  who  went  out  consoled  himself 
with  the  thought  that  it  was  utterly  impossible 
to  ride  the  brutes  up  the  almost  perpendicular 
hill-side,  or  down  the  rocky  ravines,  and  that 
he  individually  would  only  go  "  just  for  the 
fun  of  the  thing."  Those  who  stayed  behind 
made  rude  remarks  on  the  subject  of  "  pork 
butchers/'  and  the  dangers  that  attend  shooting 
from  a  balcony.  These  were  treated  with  the 
contempt  they  merited.  There  are  ways  and 
ways  of  slaying  pig — from  the  orthodox  method 
which  begins  with  "  The  Boar — The  Boar— 
The  mighty  Boar!"  overnight,  and  ends  with  a 
shaky  bridle  hand  next  morn,  to  the  sober  and 
solitary  pot-shot,  at  dawn,  from  a  railway  em- 
bankment running  through  river  marsh;  but 
the  perfect  way  is  this.  Get  a  large  four-horse 
break,  and  drive  till  you  meet  an  unlimited 
quantity  of  pad-elephants  waiting  at  the  foot  of 
rich  hill-preserves.  Mount  slowly  and  with 
dignity,  and  go  in  swinging  procession,  by  the 
marble-faced  border  of  one  of  the  most  lovely 
lakes  on  earth.  Strike  off  on  a  semi-road,  semi- 
hill-torrent  path  through  unthrifty  thorny 


Letters  of  Marque  97 

jungle,  and  so  climb  up  and  up  and  up,  till 
you  see,  spread  like  a  map  below,  the  lake  and 
the  Palace  and  the  City,  hemmed  in  by  the  sea  of 
hills  that  lies  between  Udaipur  and  Mount  Abu 
a  hundred  miles  away.  Then  take  your  seat  in 
a  comfortable  chair,  in  a  pukka,  two-storeyed 
Grand  Stand,  with  an  awning  spread  atop  to 
keep  off  the  sun,  while  the  Rawat  of  Amet  and 
the  Prime  Minister's  heir — no  less — invite  you 
to  take  your  choice  of  the  many  rifles  spread  on 
a  ledge  at  the  front  of  the  building.  This,  gen- 
tlemen who  screw  your  pet  ponies  at  early  dawn 
after  the  sounder  that  vanishes  into  cover  soon 
as  sighted,  or  painfully  follow  the  tiger  through 
the  burning  heats  of  Mewar  in  May,  this  is 
shooting  after  the  fashion  of  Ouida — in  musk 
and  ambergris  and  patchouli. 

It  is  demoralising.  One  of  the  best  and 
hardest  riders  of  the  Lahore  Tent  Club  in  the 
old  days,  as  the  boars  of  Bouli  Lena  Singh  knew 
well,  said  openly : — "  This  is  a  first-class  bundo- 
Imst"  and  fell  to  testing  his  triggers  as  though 
he  had  been  a  pot-hunter  from  his  birth.  De- 
rision and  threats  of  exposure  moved  him  not. 
"  Give  me  an  arm-chair !"  said  he.  "  This  is 
the  proper  way  to  deal  with  pig !"  And  he  put 
up  his  feet  on  the  ledge  and  stretched  himself. 

There  were  many  weapons  to  have  choice 


98  Letters  of  Marque 

among — from  the  double-barrelled  .500  Ex- 
press, whose  bullet  is  a  tearing,  rending  shell, 
to  the  Rawat  of  Amet's  regulation  military 
Martini-Henri.  A  profane  public  at  the  Resi- 
dency had  suggested  clubs  and  saws  as  amply 
sufficient  for  the  work  in  hand.  Herein  they 
were  moved  by  envy,  which  passion  was  ten-fold 
increased  when — but  this  conies  later  on.  The 
beat  was  along  a  deep  gorge  in  the  hills,  flanked 
on  either  crest  by  stone  walls,  manned  with 
beaters.  Immediately  opposite  the  shooting- 
box,  the  wall  on  the  upper  or  higher  hill  made 
a  sharp  turn  downhill,  contracting  the  space 
through  which  the  pig  would  have  to  pass  to  a 
gut  which  was  variously  said  to  be  from  one 
hundred  and  fifty  to  four  hundred  yards  across. 
Most  of  the  shooting  was  up  or  downhill. 

A  philanthropic  desire  not  to  murder  more 
Bhils  than  were  absolutely  necessary  to  main- 
tain a  healthy  current  of  human  life  in  the 
Hilly  Tracts,  coupled  with  a  well-founded  dread 
of  the  hinder,  or  horse,  end  of  a  double-barrelled 
.500  Express  which  would  be  sure  to  go  off  both 
barrels  together,  led  the  Englishman  to  take  a 
gunless  seat  in  the  background;  while  a  silence 
fell  upon  the  party,  and  very  far  away  up  the 
gorge  the  heated  afternoon  air  was  cut  by  the 
shrill  tremolo  squeal  of  the  Bhil  beaters.  Now  a 


Letters  of  Marque  99 

man  may  be  in  no  sort  or  fashion  a  shikari — 
may  hold  Budhistic  objections  to  the  slaughter 
of  living  things — but  there  is  something  in  the 
extraordinary  noise  of  an  agitated  Bhil,  which 
makes  even  the  most  peaceful  of  mortals  get  up 
and  yearn,  like  Tartarin  of  Tarescon  for 
"  lions  " — always  at  a  safe  distance  be  it  under- 
stood. As  the  beat  drew  nearer,  under  the 
squealing — the  ff  ul-al-lu-lu-lu  " — was  heard  a 
long-drawn  bittern-like  boom  of  "  So-oor!" 
"  So-oor!"  and  the  crashing  of  boulders.  The 
guns  rose  in  their  places,  forgetting  that  each 
and  all  had  merely  come  "  to  see  the  fun,"  and 
began  to  fumble  among  the  little  mounds  of 
cartridges  under  the  chairs.  Presently,  tripping 
delicately  among  the  rocks,  a  pig  stepped  out  of 
a  cactus-bush,  and — the  fusillade  began.  The 
dust  flew  and  the  branches  chipped,  but  the  pig 
went  on — a  blue-grey  shadow  almost  undis- 
tinguishable  against  the  rocks,  and  took  no 
harm.  "  Sighting  shots,"  said  the  guns  sulkily ; 
and  the  company  mourned  that  the  brute  had 
got  away.  The  beat  came  nearer,  and  then  the 
listener  discovered  what  the  bubbling  scream 
was  like;  for  he  forgot  straightway  about  the 
beat  and  went  back  to  the  dusk  of  an  Easter 
Monday  in  the  gardens  of  the  Crystal  Palace, 
before  the  bombardment  of  Kars,  "  set  piece  ten 


100  Letters  of  Marque 

thousand  feet  square,"  had  been  illuminated, 
and  about  five  hundred  'Arries  were  tickling  a 
thousand  'Arriets.  Their  giggling  and  nothing 
else  was  the  noise  of  the  Bhil.  So  curiously 
does  Sydenham  and  Western  Rajputana  me^t. 
Then  came  another  pig,  who  was  smitten  to  the 
death  and  rolled  down  among  the  bushes,  draw- 
ing his  last  breath  in  a  human  and  horrible  man- 
ner. 

But  full  on  the  crest  of  the  hill,  blown  along 
— there  is  no  other  word  to  describe  it — like  a 
ball  of  thistle-down,  passed  a  brown  shadow,  and 
men  cried : — ""  Bagheera  !  "  or  "Panther !"  ac- 
cording to  their  nationalities,  and  blazed.  The 
shadow  leaped  the  wall  that  had  turned  the  pig 
downhill,  and  vanished  among  the  cactus. 
"  Never  mind,"  said  the  Prime  Minister's  son 
consolingly,  ". we'll  beat  the  other  side  of  the  hill 
afterwards  and  get  him  yet."  "  Oh !  he's  a  mile 
off  by  this  time,"  said  the  guns ;  but  the  Rawat 
of  Amet,  a  magnificently  handsome  young  man, 
smiled  a  sweet  smile  and  said  nothing.  More 
pig  passed  and  were  slain,  and  many  more  broke 
back  through  the  beaters  who  presently  came 
through  the  cover  in  scores.  They  were  in  rus- 
set green  and  red  uniform,  each  man  bearing 
a  long  spear,  and  the  hillside  was  turned  on  the 
instant  to  a  camp  of  Robin  Hood's  foresters. 


Letters  of  Marque  101 

Then  they  brought  up  the  dead  from  behind 
bushes  and  under  rocks — among  others  a 
twenty-seven-inch  brute  who  bore  on  his  flank 
(all  pigs  shot  in  a  beat  are  ex-officio  boars)  a 
hideous,  half-healed  scar,  big  as  a  man's  hand, 
of  a  bullet  wound.  Express  bullets  are  ghastly 
things  in  their  effects,  for,  as  the  shikari  is 
never  tired  of  demonstrating,  they  knock  the  in- 
side of  animals  into  pulp. 

The  second  beat,  of  the  reverse  side  of  the 
hill,  had  barely  begun  when  the  panther  re- 
turnd — uneasily,  as  if  something  were  keeping 
her  back — much  lower  down  the  hill.  Then  the 
face  of  the  Rawat  of  Amet  changed,  as  he 
brought  his  gun  up  to  his  shoulder.  Looking  at 
him  as  he  fired,  one  forgot  all  about  the  Mayo 
College  at  which  he  had  been  educated,  and  re- 
membered only  some  trivial  and  out-of-date  af- 
fairs, in  which  his  forefathers  had  been  con- 
cerned, when  a  bridegroom,  with  his  bride  at  his 
side,  charged  down  the  slope  of  the  Chitor  road 
and  died  among  Akbar's  men.  There  are  stories 
connected  with  the  house  of  Amet,  which  are 
told  in  Mewar  to-day.  The  young  man's  face, 
for  as  short  a  time  as  it  takes  to  pull  trigger  and 
see  where  the  bullet  falls,  was  a  light  upon  all 
these  tales. 

Then  the  mask  shut  down,  as  he  clicked  out 


102  Letters  of  Marque 

the  cartridge  and,  very  sweetly,  gave  it  as  his 
opinion  that  some  other  gun,  and  not  his  own, 
had  bagged  the  panther,  who  lay  shot  through 
the  spine,  feebly  trying  to  drag  herself  down- 
hill into  cover.  It  is  an  awful  thing  to  see  a  big 
beast  die,  when  the  soul  is  wrenched  out  of  the 
struggling  body  in  ten  seconds.  Wild  horses 
shall  not  make  the  Englishman  disclose  the  ex- 
act number  of  shots  that  were  fired.  It  is 
enough  to  say  that  four  Englishmen,  now  scat- 
tered to  the  four  winds  of  heaven,  are  each 
morally  certain  that  he  and  he  alone  shot  that 
panther.  In  time,  when  distance  and  the  mir- 
age of  the  sands  of  Jodhpur  shall  have  softened 
the  harsh  outlines  of  truth,  the  Englishman  who 
did  not  fire  a  shot  will  cotne  to  believe  that  he 
was  the  real  slayer,  and  will  carefully  elaborate 
that  lie, 

A  few  minutes  after  the  murder,  a  two-year 
old  cub  came  trotting  along  the  hill-side,  and 
was  bowled  over  by  a  very  pretty  shot  behind  the 
left  ear  and  though  the  palate.  Then  the  beat- 
ers' lances  showed  through  the  bushes,  and  the 
guns  began  to  realise  that  they  had  allowed  to 
escape,  or  had  driven  back  by  their  fire,  a  multi- 
tude of  pig. 

This  ended  the  beat,  and  the  procession  re- 
turned to  the  Eesidency  to  heap  dead  pantherg 


Letters  of  Marque  103 

upon  those  who  had  called  them  "  pork  butch- 
ers," and  to  stir  up  the  lake  of  envy  with  the 
torpedo  of  brilliant  description.  The  English- 
man's attempt  to  compare  the  fusillade  which 
greeted  the  panther  to  the  continuous  drumming 
of  a  ten-barrelled  Nordenfeldt  was,  however, 
coldly  received.  So  harshly  is  truth  treated  all 
the  world  over. 

And  then,  after  a  little  time,  came  the  end, 
and  a  return  to  the  road  in  search  of  new  coun- 
tries. But  shortly  before  the  departure,  the 
Padre-Sahib,  who  knows  every  one  in  Udaipur, 
read  a  sermon  in  a  sentence.  The  Maharana's 
investiture,  which  has  already  been  described 
in  the  Indian  papers,  had  taken  place,  and  the 
carriages,  duly  escorted  by  the  Erinpura  Horse, 
were  returning  to  the  Residency.  In  a  niche  of 
waste  land,  under  the  shadow  of  the  main  gate, 
a  place  strewn  with  rubbish  and  shards  of  pot- 
tery, a  dilapidated  old  man  was  trying  to  control 
his  horse  and  a  hookah  on  the  saddle-bow.  The 
blundering  garron  had  been  made  restive  by  the 
rush  past,  and  the  hookah  all  but  fell  from  the 
hampered  hands.  "  See  that  man !"  said  the 

Padre  tersely.  "  That's Singh.  He  intrigued 

for  the  throne  not  so  very  long  ago."  It  was  a 
pitiful  little  picture,  and  needed  no  further  com- 
ment. 


104:  Letters  of  Marque 

For  the  benefit  of  the  loafer  it  should  be 
noted  that  Udaipur  will  never  be  pleasant  or 
accessible  until  the  present  Mail  Contractors 
have  been  hanged.  They  are  extortionate  and 
untruthful,  and  their  one  set  of  harness  and  one 
tonga  are  as  rotten  as  pears.  However,  the 
weariness  of  the  flesh  must  be  great  indeed  to 
make  the  wanderer  blind  to  the  beauties  of  a 
journey  by  clear  starlight  and  in  biting  cold  to 
Chitor.  About  six  miles  from  Udaipur,  the 
granite  hills  close  in  upon  the  road,  and  the  air 
grows  warmer  until,  with  a  rush  and  a  rattle, 
the  tonga  swings  through  the  great  Dobarra,  the 
gate  in  the  double  circle  of  hills  round  Udaipur 
on  to  the  pastures  of  Mewar.  More  than  once 
the  Girwa  has  been  a  death-trap  to  those  who 
rashly  entered  it ;  and  an  army  has  been  cut  up 
on  the  borders  of  the  Pichola  lake.  Even  now 
the  genius  of  the  place  is  strong  upon  the  hills, 
and  as  he  felt  the  cold  air  from  the  open 
ground  without  the  barrier,  the  Englishman 
found  himself  repeating  the  words  of  one  of  the 
Hat-marked  Tribe  whose  destiny  kept  him  with- 
in the  Dobarra.  "  You  must  have  a  shouk  of 
some  kind  in  these  parts  or  you'll  die.'*  Very 
lovely  is  Udaipur,  and  thrice  pleasant  are  a 
few  days  spent  within  her  gates,  but. . .  .read 
what  Tod  said  who  stayed  two  years  behind  the 


Letters  of  Marque  105 

Dobarra,  and  accepted  the  deserts  of  Marwar  as 
a  delightful  change. 

It  is  good  to  be  free,  a  wanderer  upon  the 
highways,  knowing  not  what  to-morrow  will 
bring  forth — whether  the  walled-in  niceties  of 
an  English  household,  rich  in  all  that  makes  life 
fair  and  desirable,  or  a  sleepless  night  in  the  so- 
ciety of  a  goods-cwm-booking-office-citm-parcels- 
clerk,  on  fifteen  rupees  a  month,  who  tells  in 
stilted  English  the  story  of  his  official  life,  while 
the  telegraph  gibbers  like  a  maniac  once  in  an 
hour  and  then  is  dumb,  and  the  pariah  dogs 
fight  and  howl  over  the  cotton-bales  on  the  plat- 
form. 

Verily,  there  is  no  life  like  life  on  the  road — 
when  the  skies  are  cool  and  all  men  are  kind. 


106  Letters  of  Marque 


X. 

A  little  of  the  History  of  Chitor,  and  the  Mal- 
practices of  a  She-elephant. 

THERE  is  a  certain  want  of  taste,  an  al- 
most actual  indecency,  in  seeing  the  sun 
rise  on  the  earth.  Until  the  heat-haze  begins 
and  the  distances  thicken,  Nature  is  so  very 
naked  that  the  Actseon  who  has  surprised  her 
dressing,  blushes.  Sunrise  on  the  plains  of 
Mewar  is  an  especially  brutal  affair. 

The  moon  was  burnt  out  and  the  air  was  bit- 
terly cold,  when  the  Englishman  headed  due 
east  in  his  tonga,  and  the  patient  sowar  be- 
hind nodded  and  yawned  in  the  saddle. 
There  was  no  warning  of  the  day's  ad- 
vent. The  horses  were  unharnessed,  at  one 
halting-stage,  in  the  thick,  soft  shadows  of 
night,  and  ere  their  successors  had  limped  under 
the  bar,  a  raw  and  cruel  light  was  upon  all 
things  so  that  the  Englishman  could  see  every 
rent  seam  in  the  rocks  around — see  "  even  to 
the  uttermost  farthing."  A  little  further,  and 
he  came  upon  the  black  bulk  of  Chitor  between 
him  and  the  morning  sun.  It  has  already  been 


Letters   of  Marque  10Y 

said  that  the  Fort  resembles  a  man-of-war, 
Every  distant  view  heightens  this  impression, 
for  the  swell  of  the  sides  follows  the  form  of  a 
ship,  and  the  bastions  on  the  south  wall  make 
the  sponsions  in  which  the  machine-guns  are 
mounted.  Erom  bow  to  stern,  the  thing  more 
than  three  miles  long,  is  between  tnree  and  five 
hundred  feet  high,  and  from  one-half  to  one- 
quarter  of  a  mile  broad.  Have  patience,  now, 
to  listen  to  a  rough  history  of  Chitor. 

In  the  beginning,  no  one  knows  clearly  who 
scarped  the  hill-sides  of  the  hill  rising  out  of 
the  bare  plain,  and  made  of  it  a  place  of 
strength.  It  is  written  that,  eleven  and  a  half 
centuries  ago,  Bappa  Eawul,  the  demi-god 
whose  stature  was  twenty  cubits,  whose  loin- 
cloth was  five  hundred  feet  long,  and  whose 
spear  was  beyond  the  power  of  mortal  man  to 
lift,  took  Chitor  from  "  Man  Singh,  the  Mori 
Prince/7  and  wrote  the  first  chapter  of  the  his- 
tory of  Mewar,  which  he  received  ready-made 
from  Man  Singh  who,  if  the  chronicles  speak 
sooth,  was  his  uncle.  Many  and  very  marvel- 
lous legends  cluster  round  the  name  of  Bappa 
Rawul;  and  he  is  said  to  have  ended  his  days, 
far  away  from  India,  in  Khorasan,  where  he 
married  an  unlimited  number  of  the  Daughters 
of  Heth,  and  was  the  father  of  all  the  IN'owshera 


108  Letters  of  Marque 

Pathans.  Some  who  have  wandered,  by  the 
sign-posts  of  inscription,  into  the  fogs  of  old 
time,  aver  that,  two  centuries  before  Bappa 
Rawul  took  Chitor,  the  Mori  Division  of  the 
Pramar  Rajputs,  who  are  the  ruling  family  of 
Mewar,  had  found  a  hold  in  Bhilwar,  and  for 
four  centuries  before  that  time  had  ruled  in 
Kathiawar;  and  had  royally  sacked  and  slain, 
and  been  sacked  and  slain  in  turn.  But  these 
things  are  for  the  curious  and  the  scholar,  and 
not  for  the  reader  who  reads  lightly.  Nine 
princes  succeeded  Bappa,  between  728  and  1068 
A.  D.,  and  among  these  was  one  Alluji,  who 
built  a  Jain  tower  upon  the  brow  of  the  hill,  for 
in  those  days,  though  the  Sun  was  worshipped, 
men  were  Jains. 

And  here  they  lived  and  sallied  into  the 
plains,  and  fought  and  increased  the  borders 
of  their  kingdom,  or  were  suddenly  and 
stealthily  murdered,  or  stood  shoulder  to 
shoulder  against  the  incursions  of  the  "  Devil 
men  "  from  the  north.  In  1150  A.  D.  was  born 
Samar  Singh,  and  he  married  into  the  family 
of  Prithi  Raj,  the  last  Hindu  Emperor  of  Delhi, 
who  was  at  feud,  in  regard  to  a  succession  ques- 
tion, with  the  Prince  of  Kanauj.  In  the  war 
that  followed,  Kanauj,  being  hard  pressed  by 
Prithi  Raj  and  Samar  Singh,  called  Shahabud- 


Letters  of  Marque  109 

din  Ghori  to  his  aid.  At  first,  Samar  Singh  and 
Prithi  Raj  broke  the  army  of  the  Northmen 
somewhere  in  the  Lower  Punjab,  but  two  years 
later  Shahabuddin  came  again,  and,  after  three 
days'  fighting  on  the  banks  of  the  Kaggar,  slew 
Samar  Singh,  captured  and  murdered  Prithi 
Raj,  and  sacked  Delhi  and  Amber  while  Samar 
Singh's  favorite  queen  became  sati  at  Chitor. 
But  another  wife,  a  princess  of  Patun,  kept  her 
life,  and  when  Shahabuddin  sent  down  Kut- 
buddin  to  waste  her  lands,  led  the  Rajput  army, 
in  person,  from  Chitor,  and  defeated  Kutbud- 
din. 

Then  followed  confusion,  through  eleven 
turbulent  reigns,  that  the  annalist  has  failed  to 
unravel.  Once  in  the  years  between  1193  and 
the  opening  of  the  fourteenth  century,  Chitor 
must  have  been  taken  by  the  Mussalman,  for  it 
is  written  that  one  prince  "  recovered  Chitor 
and  made  the  name  of  Rana  to  be  recognized  by 
all."  Six  princes  were  slain  in  battles  against 
the  Mussalman,  in  vain  attempts  to  clear  far 
away  Gya  from  the  presence  of  the  infidel. 

Then  Ala-ud-din  Khilji,the  Pathan  Emperor, 
swept  the  country  to  the  Dekkan.  In  those 
days,  and  these  things  are  confusedly  set  down  as 
having  happened  at  the  end  of  the  thirteenth 
century,  a  relative  of  Rana  Lakhsman  Singh, 


110  Letters  of  Marque 

the  then  Rana  of  Chitor,  had  married  a  Rajput 
princess  of  Ceylon — Pudmini,  "And  she  was 
fairest  of  all  flesh  on  earth."  Her  fame  was 
sung  through  the  land  by  the  poets,  and  she  be- 
came, in  some  sort,  the  Helen  of  Chitor.  Ala- 
ud-din  heard  of  her  beauty  and  promptly  be- 
sieged the  Fort.  When  he  found  his  enterprise 
too  difficult,  he  prayed  that  he  might  be  permit- 
ted to  see  Pudmini's  face  in  a  mirror,  and  this 
wish,  so  says  the  tale,  was  granted.  Knowing 
that  the  Rajput  was  a  gentleman  he  entered  Chi- 
tor almost  unarmed,  saw  the  face  in  the  mirror, 
and  was  well  treated;  the  husband  of  the  fair 
Pudmini  accompanying  him,  in  return,  to  the 
camp  at  the  foot  of  the  hill.  Like  Raja  Run- 
jeet  in  the  ballad  the  Rajput — 

" trusted  a  Mussalman 's  word 

Wah  !    Wall !    Trust  a  liar  to  lie  ! 
Out  of  his  eyrie  they  tempted  my  bird, 
Fettered  his  wings  that  he  could  not  fly." 

Pudmini Js  husband  was  caught,  and  Ala-ud-din 
demanded  Pudmini  as  the  price  of  his  return. 
The  Rajputs  here  showed  that  they  too  could 
scheme,  and  sent,  in  great  state,  Pudmini's  lit- 
ter to  the  besiegers7  entrenchments.  But  there 
was  no  Pudmini  in  the  litter,  and  the  following 
of  handmaidens  was  a  band  of  seven  hundred 


Letters  of  Marque  111 

armed  men.  Thus,  in  the  confusion  of  a  camp- 
fight,  Pudmini's  husband  was  rescued,  and  Ala- 
ud-din?s  soldiery  followed  hard  on  his  heels  to 
the  gates  of  Chitor,  where  the  best  and  bravest 
on  the  rock  were  killed  before  Ala-ud-din  with- 
drew, only  to  return  soon  after  and,  with  a 
doubled  army,  besiege  in  earnest.  His  first  at- 
tack men  called  the  half-sack  of  Chitor,  for, 
though  he  failed  to  win  within  the  walls,  he 
killed  the  flower  of  the  Rajputs.  The  second 
attack  ended  in  the  first  sack  and  the  awful  sati 
of  the  women  on  the  rock. 

When  everything  was  hopeless  and  the  very 
terrible  Goddess,  who  lives  in  the  bowels  of 
Chitor,  had  spoken  and  claimed  for  death  eleven 
out  of  the  twelve  of  the  Rana's  sons,  all  who 
were  young  or  fair  women  betook  themselves 
to  a  great  underground  chamber,  and  the  fires 
were  lit  and  the  entrance  was  walled  up  and 
they  died.  The  Rajputs  opened  the  gates  and 
fought  till  they  could  fight  no  more,  and  Ala-ud- 
din  the  victorious  entered  a  wasted  and  deso- 
lated city.  He  wrecked  everything  excepting 
only  the  palace  of  Pudmini  and  the  old  Jain 
tower  before  mentioned.  That  was  all  he  could 
do,  for  there  were  few  men  alive  of  the  defend- 
ers of  Chitor  when  the  day  was  won,  and  the 
women  were  ashes  in  the  underground  palace. 


Letters  of  Marque 


Ajai  Singh,  the  one  surviving  son  of  Lakhs- 
man  Singh,  had,  at  his  father's  insistence, 
escaped  from  Chitor  to  "  carry  on  the  line  " 
when  better  days  should  come.  He  brought  up 
Hamir,  son  of  one  of  his  elder  brothers,  to  be  a 
thorn  in  the  side  of  the  invader,  and  Hamir 
overthrew  Maldeo,  chief  of  Jhalore  and  vassal 
of  Ala-ud-din,  into  whose  hands  Ala-ud-din  had, 
not  too  generously,  given  what  was  left  of  Chi- 
tor. So  the  Sesodias  came  to  their  own  again, 
and  the  successors  of  Hamir  extended  their 
kingdoms  and  rebuilt  Chitor,  as  kings  know  how 
to  rebuild  cities  in  a  land  where  human  labour 
and  life  are  cheaper  than  bread  and  water.  For 
two  centuries,  saith  Tod,  Mewar  flourished  ex- 
ceedingly and  was  the  paramount  kingdom  of 
all  Rajasthan.  Greatest  of  all  the  successors  of 
Hamir,  was  Kumbha  Rana  who,  when  the  Ghil- 
zai  dynasty  was  rotting  away  and  Viceroys  de- 
clared themselves  kings,  met,  defeated,  took 
captive,  and  released  without  ransom,  Mahmoud 
of  Malwa.  Kumbha  Rana  built  a  Tower  of  Vic- 
tory, nine  stories  high,  to  commemorate  this  and 
the  other  successes  of  his  reign,  and  the  tower 
stands  to-day  a  mark  for  miles  across  the  plains. 
Of  this,  more  hereafter. 

But  the  well-established  kingdom  weakened, 
and  the  rulers  took  favourites  and  disgusted 


Letters  of  Marque  113 

their  best  supporters — after  the  immemorial 
custom  of  too  prosperous  rulers.  Also  they 
murdered  one  another.  In  1535  A.  D.  Bahadur 
Shah,  King  of  Gujarat,  seeing  the  decay,  and 
remembering  how  one  of  his  predecessors,  to- 
gether with  Mahmoud  of  Malwa,  had  been  hum- 
bled by  Mewar  in  years  gone  by,  set  out  to  take 
his  revenge  of  Time  and  Mewar  then  ruled  by 
Rana  Bikrmajit,  who  had  made  a  new  capital  at 
Deola.  Bikrmajit  did  not  stay  to  give  battle  in 
that  place.  His  chiefs  were  out  of  hand,  and 
Chitor  was  the  heart  and  brain  of  Mewar ;  so  he 
marched  thither,  and  the  Gods  were  against 
him.  Bahadur  Shah  mined  one  of  the  Chitor 
bastions  and  wiped  out  in  the  explosion  the  Hara 
Prince  of  Boondee  with  five  hundred  followers. 
Jowahir  Bae,  Bikrma jit's  mother  headed  a 
sally  from  the  walls  and  was  slain.  There  were 
Frank  gunners  among  Bahadur  Shah's  forces, 
and  they  hastened  the  end.  The  Rajputs  made 
a  second  joliur  greater  than  the  johur  of  Pud- 
mini;  and  thirteen  thousand  were  blown  up  in 
the  magazines,  or  stabbed  or  poisoned,  before 
the  gates  were  opened  and  the  defenders  rushed 
down. 

Out  of  the  carnage  was  saved  Udai  Singh,  a 
babe  of  the  Blood  Royal,  who  grew  up  to  be  a 
coward  and  a  shame  to  his  line.  The  story  of 


114  Letters  of  Marque 

his  preservation  is  written  large  in  Tod,  and 
Edwin  Arnold  sings  it.  Read  it,  who  are  inter- 
ested. But,  when  Udai  Singh  came  to  the 
throne  of  Chitor,  through  blood  and  mis-rule, 
after  Bahadur  Shah  had  withdrawn  from  the 
wreck  of  the  Fort,  Akbar  sat  on  the  throne  of 
Delhi,  and  it  was  written  that  few  people  should 
withstand  the  "  Guardian  of  Mankind."  More- 
over, Udai  Singh  was  the  slave  of  a  woman.  It 
was  Akbar 's  destiny  to  subdue  the  Rajputs  and 
to  win  many  of  them  to  his  own  service ;  send- 
ing a  Rajput  Prince  of  Amber  to  get  him  Ar- 
rakan.  Akbar  marched  against  Chitor  once  and 
was  repulsed ;  the  woman  who  ruled  Udai  Singh 
heading  a  charge  against  the  besiegers  because 
of  the  love  she  bore  to  her  lover.  Something  of 
this  sort  had  happened  in  Ala-ud-din's  time, 
and,  like  Ala-ud-din,  Akbar  returned  and  sat 
down,  in  a  huge  camp,  before  Chitor  in  1568  A. 
!D.  Udai  Singh  fled  what  was  coming;  and  be- 
cause the  Goddess  of  Chitor  demands  always  that 
a  crowned  head  must  fall  if  the  defence  of  her 
home  is  to  be  successful,  Chitor  fell  as  it  had 
fallen  before — in  a  johur  of  thousands,  a  last 
rush  of  the  men,  and  the  entry  of  the  conqueror 
into  a  reeking,  ruined  slaughter-pen.  Akbar's 
sack  was  the  most  terrible  of  the  three,  for  he 
killed  everything  that  had  life  upon  the  rock, 


Letters  of  Marque  115 

and  wrecked  and  overturned  and  spoiled.  The 
wonder,  the  lasting  wonder,  is  that  he  did  not 
destroy  Kumbha  Rana's  Tower  of  Victory  and 
memorial  of  the  defeat  of  a  Mahomedan  prince. 
With  the  third  sack  the  glory  of  Chitor  depart- 
ed, and  Udai  Singh  founded  himself  a  new  capi- 
tal, the  city  of  Udaipur.  Though  Chitor  was  re- 
covered in  Jehangir's  time  by  Udai  Singh's 
grandson,  it  was  never  again  made  the  capital 
of  Mewar.  It  stood  and  rooted  where  it  stood, 
till  enlightened  and  loyal  feudatories  in  the  pres- 
ent years  of  grace,  made  attempts,  with  the  help 
of  Executive  Engineers,  to  sweep  it  up  and  keep 
it  in  repair.  The  above  is  roughly,  very  rough- 
ly indeed,  the  tale  of  the  sacks  of  Chitor. 

Eollows  an  interlude,  for  the  study  even  of 
inaccurate  history  is  indigestible  to  many. 
There  was  an  elephant  at  Chitor,  to  take  birds 
of  passage  up  the  hill,  and  she — she  was  fifty- 
one  years  old  and  her  name  was  Gerowlia — 
came  to  the  dak-bungalow  for  the  Englishman. 
Let  not  the  word  dak-bungalow  deceive  any  man 
into  believing  that  there  is  even  moderate  com- 
fort at  Chitor.  Gerowlia  waited  in  the  sun- 
shine, and  chuckled  to  herself  like  a  female 
pauper  when  she  receives  snuff.  The  mahout 
said  that  he  would  go  away  for  a  drink  of  water. 
So  he  walked,  and  walked,  and  walked,  till  he 


116  Letters  of  Marque 

disappeared  on  the  stone-strewn  plains,  and  the 
Englishman  was  left  alone  with  Gerowlia  aged 
fifty-one.  She  had  been  tied  by  the  chain  on  her 
near  hind-leg  to  a  pillar  of  the  verandah;  but 
the  string  was  moonj  string  only,  and  more  an 
emblem  of  authority  than  a  means  of  restraint. 
When  she  had  thoroughly  exhausted  all  the  re- 
sources of  the  country  within  range  of  her 
trunk,  she  ate  up  the  string  and  began  to  in- 
vestigate the  verandah.  There  was  more  moonj 
string,  and  she  ate  it  all,  while  the  mistri  who 
was  repairing  the  dak-bungalow  cursed  her  and 
her  ancestry  from  afar.  About  this  time  the 
Englishman  was  roused  to  a  knowledge  of  the 
business,  for  Gerowlia,  having  exhausted  the 
string,  tried  to  come  into  the  verandah.  She 
had,  most  unwisely,  been  pampered  with  bis- 
cuits an  hour  before.  The  mistri  stood  on  an 
outcrop  of  rock  and  said  angrily : — "  See  what 
damage  your  Jiathi  has  done,  Sahib !"  "  'Tisn't 
my  Jiathi/'  said  the  Sahib  plaintively.  "  You. 
ordered  it,"  quoth  the  mistri^  "  and  it  has  been 
here  ever  so  long,  eating  up  everything."  Here- 
with he  threw  pieces  of  stone  at  Gerowlia  and 
went  away.  It  is  a  terrible  thing  to  be  left  alone 
with  an  unshackled  elephant,  even  though  she 
be  a  venerable  spinster.  Gerowlia  moved  round 
the  dak-bungalow,  blowing  her  nose  in  a  nervous 


Letters   of  Marque  117 

and  undecided  manner  and,  presently,  found 
some  more  string,  which  she  ate.  This  was  too 
much.  The  Englishman  went  out  and  spoke  to 
her.  She  opened  her  mouth  and  salaamed; 
meaning  thereby  "  biscuits."  So  long  as  she 
remained  in  this  position  she  could  do  no  harm. 
Imagine  a  boundless  rock-strewn  plain, 
broken  here  and  there  by  low  hills,  dominated 
by  the  rock  of  Chitor  and  bisected  by  a  single, 
metre-gauge  railway  track  running  into  the  In- 
finite, and  unrelieved  by  even  a  way-inspector's 
trolly.  In  the  fore-ground  put  a  brand-new  dak- 
bungalow  furnished  with  a  French  bedstead  and 
nothing  else ;  and,  in  the  verandah,  place  an  em- 
barrassed Englishman,  smiling  into  the  open 
mouth  of  an  idiotic  female  elephant.  But  Ge- 
rowlia  could  not  live  on  smiles  alone.  Einding 
that  no  food  was  forthcoming,  she  shut  her 
mouth  and  renewed  her  attempts  to  get  into  the 
verandah  and  ate  more  moonj  string.  To  say 
"  H !"  to  an  elephant  is  a  misdirected  courtesy. 
It  quickens  the  pace,  and,  if  you  flick  her  on  the 
trunk  with  a  wet  towel,  she  curls  the  trunk  out 
of  harm's  way.  Special  education  is  necessary. 
A  little  breechless  boy  passed,  carrying  a  lump 
of  stone.  "  Fit  on  the  feet,  Sahib  I"  said  he ; 
"  Hit  on  the  feet  I"  Gerowlia  had  by  this  time 
nearly  scraped  off  her  pad  and  there  were  no 


118  Letters  of  Marque 

signs  of  the  mahout.  The  Englishman  went  out 
and  found  a  tent-peg,  and  returning,  in  the  ex- 
tremity of  his  wrath,  smote  her  bitterly  on  the 
nails  of  the  near  forefoot. 

Then,  as  Rider  Haggard  used  to  say — though 
the  expression  was  patented  by  at  least  one  writ- 
er before  he  made  it  his  own — a  curious  thing 
happened.  Gerowlia  held  up  her  foot  to  be 
beaten,  and  made  the  most  absurd  noises — 
squawked,  in  fact,  exactly  like  an  old  lady  who 
has  narrowly  escaped  being  run  over.  She 
backed  out  of  the  verandah,  still  squawking,  on 
three  feet  and  in  the  open  held  up  near  and  off 
forefoot  alternately  to  be  beaten.  It  was  very 
pitiful,  for  one  swing  of  her  trunk  could  have 
knocked  the  Englishman  flat.  He  ceased  whack- 
ing her,  but  she  squawked  for  some  minutes  and 
then  fell  placidly  asleep  in  the  sunshine.  When 
the  mahout  returned,  he  beat  her  for  breaking 
her  tether  exactly  as  the  Englishman  had  done, 
but  much  more  severely,  and  the  ridiculous  old 
thing  hopped  on  three  legs  for  fully  five  min- 
utes. "  Come  along,  Sahib !"  said  the  mahout., 
"  I  will  show  this  mother  of  bastards  who  is  the 
mahout.  Fat  daughter  of  the  Devil,  sit  down ! 
You  would  eat  string,  would  you?  How  does 
the  iron  taste  ?"  And  he  gave  Gerowlia  a  head- 
ache, which  affected  her  temper  all  through  the 


Letters  of  Marque  119 

afternoon.  She  set  off,  across  the  railway  line 
which  runs  below  the  rock  of  Chitor,  into 
broken  ground  cut  up  with  nullahs  and  covered 
with  low  scrub,  over  which  it  would  have  been 
difficult  to  have  taken  a  sure-footed  horse — so 
fragmentary  and  disconnected  was  its  nature. 


120  Letters  of  Marque 


XL 

Proves  conclusively  the  Existence  of  the  Dark 
Tower  visited  by  Childe  Rolande,  and  of 
"Bogey"  who  frightens  Children. 

THE  Gamberi  river — clear  as  a  trout  stream 
— runs  through  the  waste  round  Chitor, 
and  is  spanned  by  an  old  bridge,  very  solid  and 
massive,  said  to  have  been  built  before  the  sack 
of  Ala-ud-din.  The  bridge  is  in  the  middle  of 
the  stream — the  floods  have  raced  round  either 
end  of  it — and  is  reached  by  a  steeply  sloping 
stone  causeway.  From  the  bridge  to  the  new 
town  of  Chitor,  which  lies  at  the  foot  of  the  hill, 
runs  a  straight  and  well-kept  road,  flanked  on 
either  side  by  the  scattered  remnants  of  old 
houses,  and,  here  and  there,  fallen  temples.  The 
road,  like  the  bridge,  is  no  new  thing,  and  is 
wide  enough  for  twenty  horsemen  to  ride 
abreast. 

!N"ew  Chitor  is  a  very  dirty,  and  apparently 
thriving,  little  town,  full  of  grain-merchants 
and  sellers  of  arms.  The  ways  are  barely  wide 
enough  for  the  elephant  of  dignity  and  the  little 
brown  babies  of  impudence.  The  Englishman 


Letters  of  Marque  121 

went  through,  always  on  a  slope  painfully  ac- 
centuated by  Gerowlia  who,  with  all  possible  re- 
spect to  her  years,  must  have  been  a  baggage- 
animal  and  no  true  Sahib's  mount.  Let  the 
local  Baedeker  speak  for  a  moment : — "  The 
ascent  to  Chitor,  which  begins  from  within  the 
south-east  angle  of  the  town,  is  nearly  a  mile  to 
the  upper  gate,  with  a  slope  of  about  1  in  15. 
There  are  two  zig-zag  bends,  and  on  the  three 
portions  thus  formed,  are  seven  gates,  of  which 
one,  however,  has  only  the  basement  left."  This 
is  the  language  of  fact  which,  very  properly, 
leaves  out  of  all  account  the  Genius  of  the  Place 
who  sits  at  the  gate  nearest  the  new  city  and  is 
with  the  sightseer  throughout.  The  first  im- 
pression of  repulsion  and  awe  is  given  by  a 
fragment  of  tumbled  sculpture  close  to  a  red 
daubed  lingam,  near  the  Padal  Pol  or  lowest 
gate.  It  is  a  piece  of  frieze,  and  the  figures  of 
the  men  are  worn  nearly  smooth  by  time.  What 
is  visible  is  finely  and  frankly  obscene  to  an 
English  mind. 

The  road  is  protected  on  the  Tch/ud  side  by  a 
thick  stone  wall,  loopholed  for  musketry,  one 
aperture  to  every  two  feet,  between  fifteen  and 
twenty  feet  high.  This  wall  is  being  repaired 
throughout  its  length  by  the  Maharana  of  Udai- 
pur.  On  the  hill  side,  among  the  boulders, 


122  Letters  of  Marque 

loose  stones  and  d/iao-scrub,  lies  stone  wreckage 
that  must  have  come  down  from  the  brown  bas- 
tions above. 

As  Gerowlia  laboured  up  the  stone-shod 
slope,  the  Englishman  wondered  how  much  life 
had  flowed  down  this  sluice  of  battles,  and  been 
lost  at  the  Padal  Pol — the  last  and  lowest  gate 
— where,  in  the  old  days,  the  besieging  armies 
put  their  best  and  bravest  battalions.  Once  at 
the  head  of  the  lower  slope,  there  is  a  clear  run- 
down of  a  thousand  yards  with  no  chance  of 
turning  aside  either  to  the  right  or  left.  Even 
as  he  wondered,  he  was  brought  abreast  of  two 
stone  chhatris,  each  carrying  a  red  daubed 
stone.  They  were  the  graves  of  two  very  brave 
men,  Jeemal  of  Bednore,  and  Kalla,  who  fell  in 
Akbar's  sack  fighting  like  Rajputs.  Read  the 
story  of  their  deaths,  and  learn  what  manner  of 
warriors  they  were.  Their  graves  were  all  that 
spoke  openly  of  the  hundreds  of  struggles  on 
the  lower  slope  where  the  fight  was  always 
fiercest. 

At  last,  after  half  an  hour's  climb,  the  main 
gate,  the  Ram  Pol,  was  gained,  and  the  Eng- 
lishman passed  into  the  City  of  Chitor  and — 
then  and  there  formed  a  resolution,  since  broken, 
not  to  write  one  word  about  it  for  fear  that  he 
should  be  set  down  as  a  babbling  and  a  gushing 


Letters  of  Marque  123 

enthusiast.  Objects  of  archaeological  interest 
are  duly  described  in  an  admirable  little  book 
of  Chitor  which,  after  one  look,  the  Englishman 
abandoned.  One  cannot  "  do  "  Chitor  with  a 
guide-book.  The  Padre  of  the  English  Mission 
to  Jehangir  said  the  best  that  was  to  be  said, 
when  he  described  the  place  three  hundred 
years  ago,  writing  quaintly : — "  Chitor,  an  an- 
cient great  kingdom,  the  chief  city  so  called 
which  standeth  on  a  mighty  high  hill,  flat  on  the 
top,  walled  about  at  the  least  ten  English  miles. 
There  appear  to  this  day  above  a  hundred  ruined 
churches  and  divers  fair  palaces  which  are 
lodged  in  like  manner  among  their  ruins,  as 
many  Englishmen  by  the  observation  have 
guessed.  Its  chief  inhabitants  to-day  are  Zum 
and  Ohim,  birds  and  wild  beasts,  but  the  stately 
ruins  thereof  give  a  shadow  of  its  beauty  while 
it  flourished  in  its  pride."  Gerowlia  struck  into 
a  narrow  pathway,  forcing  herself  through 
garden-trees  and  disturbing  the  peacocks.  An 
evil  guide-man  on  the  ground  waved  his  hand, 
and  began  to  speak;  but  was  silenced.  The 
death  of  Amber  was  as  nothing  to  the  death  of 
Chitor — a  body  whence  the  life  had  been  driven 
by  riot  and  sword.  Men  had  parcelled  the 
gardens  of  her  palaces  and  the  courtyards  of  her 
temples  into  fields ;  and  cattle  grazed  among  the 


124  Letters  of  Marque 

remnants  of  the  shattered  tombs.  But  over  all 
— over  rent  bastion,  split  temple-wall,  pierced 
roof  and  prone  pillar — lay  the  "  shadow  of  its 
beauty  while  it  flourished  in  its  pride.'7  The 
Englishman  walked  into  a  stately  palace  of 
many  rooms,  where  the  sunlight  streamed  in 
through  wall  and  roof,  and  up  crazy  stone  stair- 
ways, held  together,  it  seemed,  by  the  maraud- 
ing trees.  In  one  bastion,  a  wind-sown  peepul 
had  wrenched  a  thick  slab  clear  of  the  wall,  but 
held  it  tight  pressed  in  a  crook  of  a  branch,  as  a 
man  holds  down  a  fallen  enemy  under  his  elbow, 
shoulder  and  forearm.  In  another  place,  a 
strange,  uncanny  wind,  sprung  from  nowhere, 
was  singing  all  alone  among  the  pillars  of  what 
may  have  been  a  Hall  of  Audience.  The  Eng- 
lishman wandered  so  far  in  one  palace  that  he 
came  to  an  almost  black-dark  room,  high  up  in 
a  wall,  and  said  proudly  to  himself : — "  I  must 
be  the  first  man  who  has  been  here;"  meaning 
thereby  no  harm  or  insult  to  any  one.  But  he 
tripped  and  fell,  and  as  he  put  out  his  hands, 
he  felt  that  the  stairs  had  been  worn  hollow  and 
smooth  by  the  tread  of  innumerable  naked  feet. 
Then  he  was  afraid,  and  came  away  very  quick- 
ly, stepping  delicately  over  fallen  friezes  and 
bits  of  sculptured  men,  so  as  not  to  offend  the 
dead;  and  was  mightily  relieved  when  he  re- 


Letters  of  Marque  125 

covered  his  elephant  and  allowed  the  guide  to 
take  him  to  Kumbha  Kana's  Tower  of  Victory. 

This  stands,  like  all  things  in  Chitor,  among 
ruins,  but  time  and  the  other  enemies  have  been 
good  to  it.  It  is  a  Jain  edifice,  nine  storeys 
high,  crowned  atop — Was  this  designed  insult 
or  undesigned  repair? — with  a  purely  Mahom- 
edan  dome,  wherein  the  pigeons  and  the  bata 
live.  Excepting  this  blemish,  the  Tower  of  Vic- 
tory is  nearly  as  fair  as  when  it  left  the  hands 
of  the  builder  whose  name  has  not  been  handed 
down  to  us.  It  is  to  be  observed  here  that  the 
first,  or  more  ruined,  Tower  of  Victory,  built  in 
Alluji's  days,  when  Chitor  was  comparatively 
young,  was  raised  by  some  pious  Jain,  as  proof 
of  conquest  over  things  spiritual.  The  second 
tower  is  more  worldly  in  intent. 

Those  who  care  to  look,  may  find  elsewhere  a 
definition  of  its  architecture  and  its  more  strik- 
ing peculiarities.  It  was  in  kind,  but  not  in 
degree,  like  the  Jugdesh  Temple  atUdaipur,  and, 
as  it  exceeded  it  in  magnificence,  so  its  effect 
upon  the  mind  was  more  intense.  The  confus- 
ing intricacy  of  the  figures  with  which  it  was 
wreathed  from  top  to  bottom,  the  recurrence  of 
the  one  calm  face,  the  God  enthroned,  holding 
the  Wheel  of  the  Law,  and  the  appalling  lavish- 


126  Letters  of  Marque 

ness  of  decoration,  all  worked  towards  the  instil- 
ment of  fear  and  aversion. 

Surely  this  must  have  been  one  of  the  objects 
of  the  architect.  The  tower,  in  the  arrangement 
of  its  stairways,  is  like  the  interior  of  a  Chinese 
carved  ivory  puzzle-ball.  The  idea  given  is  that, 
even  while  you  are  ascending,  you  are  wrapping 
yourself  deeper  and  deeper  in  the  tangle  of  a 
mighty  maze.  Add  to  this  the  half-light,  the 
thronging  armies  of  sculptured  figures,  the  mad 
profusion  of  design  splashed  as  impartially 
upon  the  undersides  of  the  stone  window-slabs 
as  upon  the  door-beam  of  the  threshold — add, 
most  abhorrent  of  all,  the  slippery  sliminess  of 
the  walls  worn  smooth  by  naked  men,  and  you 
will  understand  that  the  tower  is  not  a  soothing 
place  to  visit.  The  Englishman  fancied  pre- 
sumptuously that  he  had,  in  a  way,  grasped  the 
builder's  idea ;  and  when  he  came  to  the  top 
storey  and  sat  among  the  pigeons  his  theory  was 
this: — To  attain  power,  wrote  the  builder  of 
old,  in  sentences  of  fine  stone,  it  is  necessary 
to  pass  through  all  sorts  of  close-packed  horrors, 
treacheries,  battles  and  insults,  in  darkness  and 
without  knowledge  whether  the  road  leads  up- 
ward or  into  a  hopeless  cul-de-sac.  Kumbha 
Rana  must  many  times  have  climbed  to  the  top 
storey,  and  looked  out  towards  the  uplands  of 


Letters  of  Marque 


Malwa  on  the  one  side  and  his  own  great  Mewar 
on  the  other,  in  the  days  when  all  the  rock 
hummed  with  life  and  the  clatter  of  hooves  upon 
the  stony  ways,  and  Mahmond  of  Malwa  was 
safe  in  hold.  How  he  must  have  swelled  with 
pride  —  fine  insolent  pride  of  life  and  rule  and 
power,  —  power  not  only  to  break  things  but  to 
compel  such  builders  as  those  who  piled  the 
tower  to  his  royal  will  !  There  was  no  decora- 
tion in  the  top  storey  to  bewilder  or  amaze  — 
nothing  but  well-grooved  stone-slabs,  and  a 
boundless  view  fit  for  kings  who  traced  their  an- 
cestry — 

"  From  times  when  forth  from  the  sunlight,  the  first  of 

our  kings  came  down, 
And  had  the  earth  for  his  footstool,  and  wore  the  stars 

for  his  crown." 

The  builder  had  left  no  mark  behind  him  — 
not  even  a  mark  on  the  threshold  of  the  door, 
or  a  sign  in  the  head  of  the  topmost  step.  The 
Englishman  looked  in  both  places,  believing  that 
those  were  the  places  generally  chosen  for  mark- 
cutting.  So  he  sat  and  meditated  on  the  beau- 
ties of  kingship,  and  the  unholiness  of  Hindu 
art,  and  what  power  a  shadow-land  of  lewd  mon- 
strosities had  upon  those  who  believed  in  it,  and 
what  Lord  Dufferin,  who  is  the  nearest  approach 
to  a  king  in  this  India,  must  Have  thought  when 


128  Letters  of  Marque 

A.-D.-C.'s  clanked  after  him  up  the  narrow 
steps.  But  the  day  was  wearing,  and  he  came 
down — in  both  senses — and,  in  his  descent,  the 
carven  things  on  every  side  of  the  tower  and 
above  and  below,  once  more  took  hold  of  and 
perverted  his  fancy,  so  that  he  arrived  at  the 
bottom  in  a  frame  of  mind  eminently  fitted  for 
a  descent  into  the  Gau-Mukh,  which  is  nothing 
more  terrible  than  a  little  spring,  falling  into  a 
reservoir,  in  the  side  of  the  hill. 

He  stumbled  across  more  ruins  and  passed  be- 
tween tombs  of  dead  Ranis,  till  he  came  to  a 
flight  of  steps,  built  out  and  cut  out  from  rock, 
going  down  as  far  as  he  could  see  into  a  growth 
of  trees  on  a  terrace  belowr  him.  The  stone  of 
the  steps  had  been  worn  and  polished  by  naked 
feet  till  it  showed  its  markings  clearly  as  agate ; 
and  where  the  steps  ended  in  a  rock-slope,  there 
was  a  visible  glair,  a  great  snail  track,  upon  the 
rocks.  It  was  hard  to  keep  safe  footing  on  the 
sliminess.  The  air  was  thick  with  the  sick  smell 
of  stale  incense,  and  grains  of  rice  were  scatter- 
ed upon  the  steps.  But  there  was  no  one  to  be 
seen.  ISTow  this  in  itself  was  not  specially  alarm- 
ing; but  the  Genius  of  the  Place  must  be  re- 
sponsible for  making  it  so.  The  Englishman 
slipped  and  bumped  on  the  rocks,  and  arrived, 
more  suddenly  than  he  desired,  upon  the  edge 


Letters  of  Marque  129 

of  a  dull  blue  tank,  sunk  between  walls  of  time- 
less masonry.  In  a  slabbed-in  recess,  water  was 
pouring  through  a  shapeless  stone  gargoyle,  into 
a  trough;  which  trough  again  dripped  into  the 
tank.  Almost  under  the  little  trickle  of  water, 
was  the  loathsome  Emblem  of  Creation,  and 
there  were  flowers  and  rice  around  it.  Water 
was  trickling  from  a  score  of  places  in  the  cut 
face  of  the  hill,  oozing  between  the  edges  of  the 
steps  and  welling  up  between  the  stone  slabs  of 
the  terrace.  Trees  sprouted  in  the  sides  of  the 
tank  and  hid  its  surroundings.  It  seemed  as 
though  the  descent  had  led  the  Englishman, 
firstly,  two  thousand  years  away  from  his  own 
century,  and  secondly,  into  a  trap,  and  that  he 
would  fall  off  the  polished  stones  into  the  stink- 
ing tank,  or  that  the  Gau-Mukh  would  continue 
to  pour  water  placidly  until  the  tank  rose  up 
and  swamped  him,  or  that  some  of  the  stone 
slabs  would  fall  forward  and  crush  him  flat. 

Then  he  was  conscious  of  remembering,  with 
peculiar  and  unnecessary  distinctness,  that, 
from  the  Gau-Mukh,  a  passage  led  to  the  subter- 
ranean chambers  in  which  fair  Pudmini  and  her 
handmaids  had  slain  themselves.  Also,  that  Tod 
had  written  and  the  Station-master  at  Chitor 
had  said,  that  some  sort  of  devil,  or  ghoul,  or 
some  thing,  stood  at  the  entrance  of  that  ap- 


130  Letters  of  Marque 

proach.  All  of  which  was  a  nightmare  bred  in 
full  day,  and  folly  to  boot ;  but  it  was  the  fault 
of  the  Genius  of  the  Place,  who  made  the  Eng- 
lishman feel  that  he  had  done  a  great  wrong  in 
trespassing  into  the  very  heart  and  soul  of  all 
Chitor.  And,  behind  him,  the  Gau-Mukh  gug- 
gled and  choked  like  a  man  in  his  death-throe. 
The  Englishman  endured  as  long  as  he  could — 
about  two  minutes.  Then  it  came  upon  him  that 
he  must  go  quickly  out  of  this  place  of  years 
and  blood — must  get  back  to  the  afternoon  sun- 
shine, and  Gerowlia,  and  the  dak-bungalow  with 
the  French  bedstead.  He  desired  no  archaeo- 
logical information,  he  wished  to  take  no  notes, 
and,  above  all,  he  did  not  care  to  look  behind 
him,  where  stood  the  reminder  that  he  was  no 
better  than  the  beasts  that  perish.  But  he  had 
to  cross  the  smooth,  worn  rocks,  and  he  felt  their 
sliminess  through  his  boot-soles.  It  was  as 
though  he  were  treading  on  the  soft,  oiled  skin 
of  a  Hindu.  As  soon  as  the  steps  gave  refuge, 
he  floundered  up  them,  and  so  came  out  of  the 
Gau-Mukh,  bedewed  with  that  perspiration 
which  follows  alike  on  honest  toil  or — childish 
fear. 

"  This,"  said  he  to  himself,  « is  absurd !" 
and  sat  down  on  the  fallen  top  of  a  temple  to 
review  the  situation.  But  the  Gau-Mukh  had 


Letters  of  Marque  131 

disappeared.  He  could  see  the  dip  in  the  ground, 
and  the  beginning  of  the  steps,  but  nothing 
more. 

In  defence,  it  may  be  urged  that  there  is 
moral,  just  as  much  as  there  is  mine,  choke- 
damp.  If  you  get  into  a  place  laden  with  the 
latter  you  die,  and  if  into  the  home  of  the  for- 
mer you behave  unwisely,  as  constitution  and 

temperament  prompt.  If  any  man  doubt  this, 
let  him  sit  for  two  hours  in  a  hot  sun  on  an  ele- 
phant, stay  half-an-hour  in  the  Tower  of  Vic- 
tory, and  then  go  down  into  the  Gau-Mukh, 
which,  it  must  never  be  forgotten,  is  merely  a 
set  of  springs  "  three  or  four  in  number,  issu- 
ing from  the  cliff  face  at  cow-mouth  carvings, 
now  mutilated.  The  water  evidently  percolat- 
ing from  the  Hathi  Kund  above,  falls  first  in 
an  old  pillared  hall  and  thence  into  the  masonry 
reservoir  below,  eventually,  when  abundant 
enough,  supplying  a  little  waterfall  lower 
down.7'  That,  Gentlemen  and  Ladies,  on  the 
honour  of  one  who  has  been  frightened  of  the 
dark  in  broad  daylight,  is  the  Gau-Mukh,  as 
though  photographed. 

The  Englishman  regained  Gerowlia  and  de- 
manded to  be  taken  away,  but  Gerowlia's  driver 
went  forward  instead  and  showed  him  a  new 
Mahal  just  built  by  the  present  Maharana.  If  a 


132  Letters  of  Marque 

fourth  sack  of  Chitor  could  be  managed  for  a 
\7iceroy's  edification,  the  blowing  up  of  the  new 
Mahal  would  supply  a  pleasant  evening's  enter- 
tainment. Near  the  Mahal  lie  the  remains  of 
the  great  tanks  of  Chitor,  for  the  hill  has, 
through  a  great  part  of  its  length,  a  depres- 
sion in  the  centre  which,  by  means  of  bunds, 
stored,  in  the  old  time,  a  full  supply  of  water.  A 
general  keeping  in  order  is  visible  throughout 
many  of  the  ruins ;  and,  in  places,  a  carriage- 
drive  is  being  constructed.  Carriage-drives,  how- 
ever, do  not  consort  well  with  Chitor  and  the 
"  shadow  of  her  ancient  beauty."  The  return 
journey,  past  temple  after  temple  and  palace 
upon  pa J  ace,  began  in  the  failing  light,  and 
Gerowlia  was  still  blundering  up  and  down  nar- 
row bye-paths — for  she  possessed  all  an  old 
woman's  delusion  as  to  the  slimness  of  her 
waist — when  the  twilight  fell,  and  the  smoke 
from  the  town  below  began  to  creep  up  the 
brown  flanks  of  Chitor,  and  the  jackals  howled. 
Then  the  sense  of  desolation,  which  had  been 
strong  enough  in  all  conscience  in  the  sunshine, 
began  to  grow  and  grow : — 

"  The  sun's  eye  had  a  sickly  glare, 

The  earth  with  age  was  wan, 
The  skeletons  of  ages  stood 
Around  that  lonely  man." 


Letters  of  Marque  133 

Near  the  Earn  Pol  there  was  some  semblance 
of  a  town  with  living  people  in  it,  and  a  priest 
sat  in  the  middle  of  the  road  and  howled  aloud 
upon  his  Gods,  until  a  little  boy  came  and 
laughed  in  his  face  heretically,  and  he  went 
away  grumbling.  This  touch  was  deeply  re- 
freshing ;  in  the  contemplation  of  it,  the  English- 
man clean  forgot  that  he  had  overlooked  the 
gathering  in  of  materials  for  an  elaborate  sta- 
tistical, historical,  geographical  account  of  Chi- 
tor.  All  that  remained  to  him  was  a  shuddering 
reminiscence  of  the  Gau-Mukh  and  two  lines  of 
the  "Holy  Grail." 

"And  up  into  the  sounding  halls  he  passed, 
But  nothing  in  the  sounding  halls  he  saw." 

Post  Scriptum. — There  was  something  very 
uncanny  about  the  Genius  of  the  Place.  He 
dragged  an  ease-loving  egotist  out  of  the  French 
bedstead  with  the  gilt  knobs  at  head  and  foot, 
into  a  more  than  usually  big  folly — nothing  less 
than  a  seeing  of  Chitor  by  moonlight.  There 
was  no  possibility  of  getting  Gerowlia  out  of  her 
bed,  and  a  mistrust  of  the  Maharana's  soldiery 
who  in  the  day  time  guarded  the  gates,  prompt- 
ed the  Englishman  to  avoid  the  public  way,  and 
scramble  straight  up  the  hillside,  along  an  at- 
tempt at  a  path  which  he  had  noted  from  Ge- 


134:  Letters  of  Marque 

rowlia'p  back.  There  was  no  one  to  interfere, 
and  nothing  but  an  infinity  of  pestilent  nullahs 
and  loose  stones  to  check.  Owls  came  out  and 
hooted  at  him,  and  animals  ran  about  in  the 
dark  and  made  uncouth  noises.  It  was  an 
idiotic  journey,  and  it  ended — Oh  horror!  in 
that  unspeakable  Gau-Mukh — this  time  entered 
from  the  opposite  or  brush  wooded  side,  a  3  far  as 
could  be  made  out  in  the  dusk  and  from  the 
chuckle  of  the  water  which,  by  night,  was 
peculiarly  malevolent. 

Escaping  from  this  place,  crab-fashion,  the 
Englishman  crawled  into  Chitor  and  sat  upon  a 
flat  tomb  till  the  moon,  a  very  inferior  and 
second-hand  one,  rose,  and  turned  the  city  of 
the  dead  into  a  city  of  scurrying  ghouls — in 
sobriety,  jackals.  Also,  the  ruins  took  strange 
shapes  and  shifted  in  the  half  light  and  cast  ob- 
jectionable shadows. 

It  was  easy  enough  to  fill  the  rock  with  the 
people  of  old  times,  and  a  very  beautiful  ac- 
count of  Chitor  restored,  made  out  by  the  help 
of  Tod,  and  bristling  with  the  names  of  the 
illustrious  dead,  would  undoubtedly  have  been 
written,  had  not  a  woman,  a  living,  breathing 
woman,  stolen  out  of  a  temple — What  was  she 
doing  in  that  galley? — and  screamed  in  pierc- 
ing and  public-spirited  fashion.  The  English- 


Letters  of  Marque  135 

man  got  oif  the  tomb  and  departed  rather  more 
noisily  than  a  jackal;  feeling  for  the  moment 
that  he  was  not  much  better.  Somebody  opened 
a  door  with  a  crash,  and  a  man  cried  out: — 
"  Who  is  there  ?"  But  the  cause  of  the  disturb- 
ance was,  for  his  sins,  being  most  horribly 
scratched  by  some  thorny  scrub  over  the  edge 
of  the  hill — there  are  no  bastions  worth  speak- 
ing of  near  the  Gau-Mukh — and  the  rest  was 
partly  rolling,  partly  scrambling,  and  mainly 
bad  language. 

When  you  are  too  lucky  sacrifice  something, 
a  beloved  pipe  for  choice,  to  Ganesh.  The  Eng- 
lishman has  seen  Chitor  by  moonlight — not  the 
best  moonlight  truly,  but  the  watery  glare  of  a 
nearly  spent  moon — and  his  sacrifice  to  Luck  is 
this.  He  will  never  try  to  describe  what  he  has 
seen — but  will  keep  it  as  a  love-letter,  a  thing 
for  one  pair  of  eyes  only — a  memory  that  few 
men  to-day  can  be  sharers  in.  And  does  he, 
through  this  fiction,  evade  insulting,  by  the 
dauberie  of  pen  and  ink,  a  scene  as  lovely,  wild, 
and  unmatchable  as  any  that  mortal  eyes  have 
been  privileged  to  rest  upon  ? 

An  intelligent  and  discriminating  public  are 
perfectly  at  liberty  to  form  their  own  opinions. 


136  Letters  of  Marque 


XII. 

Contains  the  History  of  the  Bhumia  of  Jhar- 
wasa,  and  the  Record  of  a  Visit  to  the  House 
of  Strange  Stories.  Demonstrates  the 
Felicity  of  Loaferdom,  which  is  the  veritable 
Companionship  of  the  Indian  Empire,  and 
proposes  a  Scheme  for  the  better  Officering  of 
two  Departments. 

COME  away  from  the  monstrous  gloom  of 
Chitor  and  escape  northwards.  The  place 
is  unclean  and  terrifying.  Let  us  catch  To-day 
by  both  hands  and  return  to  the  Station-master 
— who  is  also  booking-parcels  and  telegraph- 
clerk,  and  who  never  seems  to  go  to  bed — and  to 
the  comfortably  wadded  bunks  of  the  Kajpu- 
tana-Malwa  line. 

While  the  train  is  running,  be  pleased  to 
listen  to  the  perfectly  true  story  of  the  bhumia 
of  Jharwasa,  which  is  a  story  the  sequel  whereof 
has  yet  to  be  written.  Once  upon  a  time,  a 
Rajput  landholder,  a  bhumia,  and  a  Mahomedan 
jaghirdar,  were  next-door  neighbours  in  Ajmir 
territory.  They  hated  each  other  thoroughly 
for  many  reasons,  all  connected  with  land ;  and 


Letters  of  Marque  1ST 

the  jaghirdar  was  the  bigger  man  of  the  two. 
In  those  days,  it  was  the  law  that  victims  of 
robbery  or  dacoity  should  be  reimbursed  by  the 
owner  of  the  lands  on  which  the  affair  had  taken 
place.  The  ordinance  is  now  swept  away  as 
impracticable.  There  was  a  highway  robbery  on 
the  bhurnia's  holding ;  and  he  vowed  that  it  had 
been  "  put  up  "  by  the  Mahomedan  who,  he 
said,  was  an  Ahab.  The  reive-gelt  payable  near- 
ly ruined  the  Rajput,  and  he,  labouring  under  a 
galling  grievance  or  a  groundless  suspicion,  fired 
the  jaghirdar' 's  crops,  was  detected  and  brought 
up  before  the  English  Judge  who  gave  him  four 
years'  imprisonment.  To  the  sentence  was  ap- 
pended a  recommendation  that,  on  release,  the 
Rajput  should  be  put  on  heavy  securities  for 
good  behaviour.  "  Otherwise,"  wrote  the 
Judge,  who  seems  to  have  known  the  people 
he  was  dealing  with,  "he  will  certainly  kill  the 
jaghirdar/'  Four  years  passed,  and  the  jaghir- 
dar obtained  wealth  and  consideration,  and  was 
made,  let  us  say,  a  Khan  Bahadur,  and  an  Hon- 
orary Magistrate;  but  the  bhumia  remained  in 
gaol  and  thought  over  the  highway  robbery. 
When  the  day  of  release  came,  a  new  Judge 
hunted  tip  his  predecessor's  finding  and  recom- 
mendation, and  would  have  put  the  Wiumia  on 
(security.  "Sahib,"  said  the  Wiumm,  "  I  have 


138  Letters  of  Marque 

no  people.  I  have  been  in  gaol.  What  am  I 
now?  And  who  will  find  security  for  me?  If 
you  will  send  me  back  to  gaol  again  I  can  do 
nothing,  and  I  have  no  friends.'7  So  they  re- 
leased him,  and  he  went  away  into  an  outlying 
village  and  borrowed  a  sword  from  one  house, 
and  had  it  sharpened  in  another,  for  love.  Two 
days  later  fell  the  birthday  of  the  Khan  Baha- 
dur and  the  Honorary  Magistrate,  and  his 
friends  and  servants  and  dependants  made  a 
little  durbar  and  did  him  honour  after  the  na- 
tive custom.  The  bhumia  also  attended  the 
levee,  but  no  one  knew  him,  and  he  was  stopped 
at  the  door  of  the  courtyard  by  the  servant. 
"  Say  that  the  bhumia  of  Jharwasa  has  come  to 
pay  his  salaams,"  said  he.  They  let  him  in,  and 
in  the  heart  of  Ajmir  City,  in  broad  daylight, 
and  before  all  the  jaghirdar's  household,  he 
smote  off  his  enemy's  head  so  that  it  rolled  upon 
the  ground.  Then  he  fled,  and  though  they 
raised  the  country-side  against  him  he  was  never 
caught,  and  went  into  Bikanir. 

Five  years  later,  word  came  to  Ajmir  that 
Chimbo  Singh,  the  bhumia  of  Jharwasa,  had 
taken  service  under  the  Thakur  Sahib  of  Pali- 
tana.  The  case  was  an  old  one,  and  the  chances 
of  identification  musty,  but  the  suspected  was 
caught  and  brought  in,  and  one  of  the  leading 


Letters  of  Marque 

native  barristers  of  the  Bombay  Bar  was  re- 
tained to  defend  him.  He  said  nothing  and 
continued  to  say  nothing,  and  the  case  fell 
through.  He  is  believed  to  be  "  wanted  "  now 
for  a  fresh  murder  committed  within  the  last 
few  months,  out  Bikanir  way. 

And  now  that  the  train  has  reached  Ajmir, 
the  Crewe  of  Rajputana,  whither  shall  a  tramp 
turn  his  feet  ?  The  Englishman  set  his  stick  on 
end,  and  it  fell  with  its  point  ^orth- West  as  near- 
ly as  might  be.  This  being  translated,  meant 
Jodhpur,  which  is  the  city  of  the  Hounhnhyms 
and,  that  all  may  be  in  keeping,  the  occasional 
resting-place  of  fugitive  Yahoos.  If  you  would 
enjoy  Jodhpur  thoroughly,  quit  at  Ajmir  the 
decent  conventionalities  of  "  station  "  life,  and 
make  it  your  business  to  move  among  gentle- 
men— gentlemen  in  the  Ordnance  of  the  Com- 
missariat, or,  better  still,  gentlemen  on  the 
Railway.  At  Ajmir,  gentlemen  will  tell  you 
what  manner  of  place  Jodhpur  is,  and  their  ac- 
counts, though  flavoured  with  crisp  and  curdling 
oaths,  are  amusing.  In  their  eyes  the  desert 
that  rings  the  city  has  no  charms,  and  they  dis- 
cuss affairs  of  the  State,  as  they  understand 
them,  in  a  manner  that  would  curl  the  hair  on 
a  Political's  august  head.  Jodhpur  has  been, 
but  things  are  rather  better  now,  a  much-favour- 


140  Letters  of  Marque 

ed  camping  ground  for  the  light-cavalry  of  the 
road — the  loafers  with  a  certain  amount  of 
brain  and  great  assurance.  The  explanation  is 
simple.  There  are  more  than  four  hundred 
horses  in  His  Highness' s  city  stables  alone ;  and 
where  the  Hounhnhym  is,  there  also  will  be  the 
Yahoo.  This  is  sad  but  true. 

Besides  the  Uhlans  who  come  and  go  on 
Heaven  knows  what  mysterious  errands,  there 
are  bag-men  travelling  for  the  big  English 
firms.  Jodhpur  is  a  good  customer,  and  pur- 
chases all  sorts  of  things,  more  or  less  useful, 
for  the  State  or  its  friends.  These  are  the 
gentlemen  to  know,  if  you  would  understand 
something  of  matters  which  are  not  written  in 
reports. 

The  Englishman  took  a  train  from  Ajmir  to 
Marwar  Junction,  which  is  on  the  road  to 
Mount  Abu,  westward  from  Ajmir,  and  at  five 
in  the  morning,  under  pale  moonlight,  was  un- 
carted at  the  beginning  of  the  Jodhpur  State 
Railway — one  of  the  quaintest  little  lines  that 
ever  ran  a  locomotive.  It  is  the  Maharaja's 
very  own,  and  pays  about  ten  per  cent. ;  but  its 
quaintness  does  not  lie  in  these  things.  It  is 
worked  with  rude  economy,  and  started  life  by 
singularly  and  completely  falsifying  the  Gov- 
ernment estimates  for  its  construction.  An  in- 


Letters  of  Marque  141 

telligent  Bureau  asserted  that  it  could  not  be 
laid  down  for  less  than — but  the  error  shall  be 
glossed  over.  It  was  laid  down  for  a  little  more 
than  seventeen  thousand  rupees  a  mile,  with  the 
help  of  second-hand  rails  and  sleepers ;  and  it  is 
currently  asserted  that  the  Station-masters  are 
flagmen,  pointsmen,  ticket-collectors  and  every- 
thing else,  except  platforms  and  lamp-rooms. 
As  only  two  trains  are  run  in  the  twenty-four 
hours,  this  economy  of  staff  does  not  matter  in 
the  least.  The  State  line,  with  the  comparative- 
ly new  branch  to  the  Pachbadra  salt-pits,  pays 
handsomely,  and  is  exactly  suited  to  the  needs  of 
its  users.  True,  there  is  a  certain  haziness  as  to 
the  hour  of  starting,  but  this  allows  laggards 
more  time,  and  fills  the  packed  carriages  to 
overflowing. 

From  Marwar  Junction  to  Jodhpur,  the  train 
leaves  the  Aravalis  and  goes  northwards  into 
"  the  region  of  death  "  that  lies  beyond  the 
Luni  Eiver.  Sand,  ok  bushes,  and  sand-hills, 
varied  with  occasional  patches  of  unthrifty  cul- 
tivation, make  up  the  scenery.  Rain  has  been 
very  scarce  in  Marwar  this  year,  and  the  coun- 
try, consequently,  shows  at  its  worst,  for  almost 
every  square  mile  of  the  kingdom  nearly  as 
large  as  Scotland  is  dependent  on  the  sky  for  its 
crops.  In  a  good  season,  a  large  village  can  pay 


142  Letters  of  Marque 

from  seven  to  nine  thousand  rupees  revenue 
without  blenching.  In  a  bad  one,  "  all  the 
king's  horses  and  all  the  king's  men "  may 
think  themselves  lucky  if  they  raise  "  rupees 
fifteen  only  "  from  the  same  place.  The  fluc- 
tuation is  startling. 

From  a  country-side,  which  to  the  uninitiated 
seems  about  as  valuable  as  a  stretch  of  West 
African  beach,  the  State  gets  a  revenue  of 
nearly  forty  lakhs;  and  men  who  know  the 
country  vow  that  it  has  not  been  one  tithe  ex- 
ploited, and  that  there  is  more  to  be  made  from 
salt  and  the  marble  and — curious  thing  in  this 
wilderness — good  forest  conservancy,  than  an 
open-handed  Durbar  dreams  of.  An  amiable 
weakness  for  unthinkingly  giving  away  villages 
where  ready  cash  failed,  has  somewhat  ham- 
pered the  revenue  in  past  years ;  but  now — and 
for  this  the  Maharaja  deserves  great  credit — 
Jodhpur  has  a  large  and  genuine  surplus,  and 
a  very  compact  little  scheme  of  railway  exten- 
sion. Before  turning  to  a  consideration  of  the 
City  of  Jodhpur,  hear  a  true  story  in  connection 
Vith  the  Hyderabad-Pachbadra  project  which 
those  interested  in  the  scheme  may  lay  to  heart. 

His  State  line,  his  "  ownest  own,"  as  has 
been  said,  very  much  delighted  the  Maharaja 
who,  in  one  or  two  points,  is  not  unlike  Sir 


Letters  of  Marque  143 

Theodore  Hope  of  sainted  memory.  Pleased 
with  the  toy,  he  said  effusively,  in  words  which 
may  or  may  not  have  reached  the  ears  of  the 
Hyderabad-Pachbadra  people : — "  This  is  a 
good  business.  If  the  Government  will  give  me 
independent  jurisdiction,  I'll  make  and  open 
the  line  straightaway  from  Pachbadra  to  the 
end  of  my  dominions,  i.  e.f  all  but  to  Hydera- 
bad." 

Then  "  up  and  spake  an  elder  knight,  sat  at 
the  King's  right  knee/7  who  knew  something 
about  the  railway  map  of  India,  and  the  Con- 
trolling Power  of  strategical  lines : — "  Maha- 
raja Sahib — here  is  the  Indus  Valley  State  and 
here  is  the  Bombay-Baroda.  Where  would  you 
be  ?"  "  By  Jove,"  quoth  the  Maharaja,  though 
he  swore  by  quite  another  god :  "  I  see !"  and 
thus  he  abandoned  the  idea  of  a  Hyderabad  line, 
and  turned  his  attention  to  an  extension  to  £Ta- 
gore,  with  a  branch  to  the  Makrana  marble-quar- 
ries which  are  close  to  the  Sambhar  salt  lake 
near  Jeypore.  And,  in  the  fulness  of  time, 
that  extension  will  be  made  and  perhaps  ex- 
tended to  Bahawalpur. 

The  Englishman  came  to  Jodhpur  at  mid-day, 
in  a  hot,  fierce  sunshine  that  struck  back  from 
the  sands  and  the  ledges  of  red-rock,  as  though 
it  were  May  instead  of  December.  The  line 


144  Letters  of  Marque 

scorned  such  a  thing  as  a  reguiar  ordained 
terminus.  The  single  track  gradually  melted 
away  into  the  sands.  Close  to  the  station  was  a 
grim  stone  dak-bungalow,  and  in  the  verandah 
stood  a  brisk,  bag-and-flask-begirdled  individual, 
cracking  his  joints  with  excess  of  irritation.  He 
was  also  snorting  like  an  impatient  horse. 

Nota  Bene. — When  one  is  on  the  road  it  is 
above  all  things  necessary  to  "  pass  the  time 
o'day"  to  fellow-wanderers.  Failure  to  com- 
ply with  this  law  implies  that  the  offender  is 
"  too  good  for  his  company" ;  and  this,  on  the 
road,  is  the  unpardonable  sin.  The  Englishman 
"  passed  the  time  o'  day  "  in  due  and  ample 
form.  "  Ha !  Ha !"  said  the  gentleman  with  the 
bag.  "Isn't  this  a  sweet  place  ?  There  ain't  no 
ticca-gharries,  and  there  ain't  nothing  to  eat, 
if  you  haven't  brought  your  vittles,  an'  they 
charge  you  three-eight  for  a  bottle  of  whisky. 
An'  Encore  at  that!  Oh!  It's  a  sweet  place." 
Here  he  skipped  about  the  verandah  and  puffed. 
Then  turning  upon  the  Englishman,  he  said 
fiercely: — "What  have  you  come  here  for?" 
Now  this  was  rude,  because  the  ordinary  form 
of  salutation  on  the  road  is  usually : — "  And 
what  are  you  for?"  meaning,  "what  house  do 
you  represent?"  THe  Englishman  answered 
dolefully  that  lie  was  travelling  for  pleasure, 


Letters  of  Marque  145 

which  simple  explanation  offended  the  little 
man  with  the  courier-bag.  He  snapped  his 
joints  more  excruciatingly  than  ever : — "  For 
pleasure !  My  God !  For  pleasure !  Come  here 
an'  wait  five  weeks  for  your  money,  an'  mark 
what  I'm  tellin'  you  now,  you  don't  get  it  then ! 
But  per'aps  your  ideas  of  pleasure  is  different 
from  most  peoples'.  For  pleasure!  Yah!"  He 
skipped  across  the  sand  towards  the  station,  for 
he  was  going  back  with  the  down  train,  and 
vanished  in  a  whirlwind  of  luggage  and  the  flut- 
tering of  female  skirts :  in  Jodhpur  women  are 
baggage-coolies.  A  level,  drawling  voice  spoke 
from  an  inner  room : — 'E's  a  bit  upset.  That's 
what  'e  is !  I  remember  when  I  was  at  Gworlior" 
— the  rest  of  the  story  was  lost,  and  the  English- 
man set  to  work  to  discover  the  nakedness  of  the 
dak-bungalow.  For  reasons  which  do  not  con- 
cern the  public,  it  is  made  as  bitterly  uncom- 
fortable as  possible.  The  food  is  infamous,  and 
the  charges  seem  to  be  wilfully  pitched  about 
eighty  per  cent,  above  the  tariff,  so  that  some 
portion  of  the  bill,  at  least,  may  be  paid  without 
bloodshed,  or  the  unseemly  defilement  of  walls 
with  the  contents  of  drinking-glasses.  This  is 
short-sighted  policy,  and  it  would,  perhaps,  be 
better  to  lower  the  prices  and  hide  the  tariff, 
and  put  a  guard  about  the  house  to  prevent 


146  Letters  of  Marque 

jackal-molested  donkeys  from  stampeding  into 
the  verandahs.  But  these  be  details.  Jodhpur 
dak-bungalow  is  a  merry,  merry  place,  and  any 
writer  in  search  of  new  ground  to  locate  a  madly 
improbable  story  in?  could  not  do  better  than 
study  it  diligently.  In  front  lies  sand,  riddled 
with  innumerable  ant-holes,  and,  beyond  the 
sand,  the  red  sandstone  wall  of  the  city,  and  the 
Mahomedan  burying-ground  that  fringes  it. 
Fragments  of  sandstone  set  on  end  mark  the 
resting  places  of  the  faithful  who  are  of  no  great 
account  here.  Above  everything,  a  mark  for 
miles  round,  towers  the  dun-red  piles  of  the 
Fort  which  is  also  a  Palace.  This  is  set  upon 
sandstone  rock  whose  sharper  features  have  been 
worn  smooth  by  the  wash  of  the  windblown 
sand.  It  is  as  monstrous  as  anything  in  Dore's 
illustrations  of  the  Conies  Drolatiques  and, 
wherever  it  wanders,  the  eye  comes  back  at  last 
to  its  fantastic  bulk.  There  is  no  greenery  on 
the  rock,  nothing  but  fierce  sunlight  or  black 
shadow.  A  line  of  red  hills  forms  the  back- 
ground of  the  city,  and  this  is  as  bare  as  the 
picked  bones  of  camels  that  lie  bleaching  on  the 
sand  below. 

Wherever  the  eye  falls,  it  sees  a  camel  or  a 
string  of  camels — lean,  racer-built  sowarri 
camels,  or  heavy,  black,  shag-haired  trading- 


Letters  of  Marque  147 

ships  bent  on  their  way  to  the  Railway  Station. 
Through  the  night  the  air  is  alive  with  the  bub- 
bling and  howling  of  the  brutes,  who  assuredly 
must  suffer  from  nightmare.  In  the  morning 
the  chorus  round  the  station  is  deafening.  A 
camel  has  as  wide  a  range  of  speech  as  an  ele- 
phant. The  Englishman  found  a  little  one, 
crooning  happily  to  itself,  all  alone  on  the  sands. 
Its  nose-string  was  smashed.  Hence  its  joy.  But 
a  big  man  left  the  station  and  beat  it  on  the  neck 
with  a  seven-foot  stick,  and  it  rose  up  and 
sobbed. 

Knowing  what  these  camels  meant,  but  trust- 
ing nevertheless  that  the  road  would  not  be  very 
bad,  the  Englishman  went  into  the  city,  left  a 
well-kunkered  road,  turned  through  a  sand- 
worn,  red  sandstone  gate,  and  sunk  ankle-deep 
in  fine  reddish  white  sand.  This  was  the  main 
thoroughfare  of  the  city.  Two  tame  lynxes 
shared  it  with  a  donkey ;  and  the  rest  of  the  pop- 
ulation seemed  to  have  gone  to  bed.  In  the  hot 
weather,  between  ten  in  the  morning  and  four  in 
the  afternoon  all  Jodhpur  stays  at  home  for  fear 
of  death  by  sunstroke,  and  it  is  possible  that 
the  habit  extends  far  into  what  is  officially  called 
the  "  cold  weather" ;  or,  perhaps,  being  brought 
up  among  sands,  men  do  not  care  to  tramp  them 
for  pleasure.  The  city  internally  is  a  walled 


148  Letters  of  Marque 


and  secret  place;  each  courtyard  being  hidden 
from  view  by  a  red  sandstone  wall,  except  in  a 
few  streets  where  the  shops  are  poor  and  mean. 
In  an  old  house  now  used  for  the  storing  of 
tents,  Akbar's  mother  lay  two  months,  before  the 
"  Guardian  of  Mankind  "  was  born,  drawing 
breath  for  her  flight  to  Umarkot  across  the  des- 
ert. Seeing  this  place,  the  Englishman  thought 
of  many  things  not  worth  the  putting  down  on 
paper,  and  went  on  till  the  sand  grew  deeper 
and  deeper,  and  a  great  camel,  heavily  laden 
with  stone,  came  round  a  corner  and  nearly 
stepped  on  him.  As  the  evening  drew  on,  the 
city  woke  up,  and  the  goats  and  the  camels  and 
the  kine  came  in  by  hundreds,  and  men  said 
that  wild  pig,  which  are  strictly  preserved  by 
the  Princes  for  their  own  sport,  were  in  the 
habit  of  wandering  about  the  roads.  Now  if 
they  do  this  in  the  capital,  what  damage  must 
they  not  do  to  the  crops  in  the  district  ?  Men 
said  that  they  did  a  very  great  deal  of  damage, 
and  it  was  hard  to  keep  their  noses  out  of  any- 
thing they  took  a  fancy  to.  On  the  evening  of 
the  Englishman's  visit,  the  Maharaja  went  out, 
as  is  his  laudable  custom,  alone  and  unattended, 
to  a  road  actually  in  the  city  along  which  one 
specially  big  pig  was  in  the  habit  of  passing. 
His  Highness  got  his  game  with  a  single  shot 


Letters   of  Marque  149 

behind  the  shoulder,  and  in  a  few  days  it  will  be 
pickled  and  sent  off  to  the  Maharana  of  Udaipur, 
as  a  love-gift,  on  account  of  the  latter' s  investi- 
ture. There  is  great  friendship  between  Jodh- 
pur  and  Udaipur,  and  the  idea  of  one  King  go- 
ing abroad  to  shoot  game  for  another  has  some- 
thing very  pretty  and  quaint  in  it. 

Night  fell  and  the  Englishman  became  aware 
that  the  conservancy  of  Jodhpur  might  r>e  vastly 
improved.  Strong  stenches,  say  the  doctors,  are 
of  no  importance;  but  there  came  upon  every 
breath  of  heated  air — and  in  Jodhpur  City  the 
air  is  warm  in  mid-winter — the  faint,  sweet, 
sickly,  reek  that  one  has  always  been  taught  to 
consider  specially  deadly.  A  few  months  ago 
there  was  an  impressive  outbreak  of  cholera  in 
Jodhpur,  and  the  Residency  Doctor,  who  really 
hoped  that  the  people  would  be  brought  to  see 
sense,  did  his  best  to  bring  forward  a  general 
cleansing-scheme.  But  the  city  fathers  would 
have  none  of  it.  Their  fathers  had  been  trying 
to  poison  themselves  in  wrell-defined  ways  for  an 
indefinite  number  of  years ;  and  they  were  not 
going  to  have  any  of  the  Sahib's  "  sweeper  non- 
sense." 

To  clinch  everything,  one  travelled  member 
of  the  community  rose  in  his  place  and  said  :— 
"  Why,  I've  been  to  Simla.  Yes,  to  Simla !  And 


150  Letters  of  Marque 

even  I  don't  want  it !"  This  compliment  should 
be  engrossed  in  the  archives  of  the  Simla 
Municipality.  Sanitation  on  English  lines  is 
not  yet  acceptable  to  Jodhpur. 

When  the  black  dusk  had  shut  down,  the 
Englishman  climbed  up  a  little  hill  and  saw  the 
stars  come  out  and  shine  over  the  desert.  Very 
far  away,  some  camel-drivers  had  lighted  a  fire 
and  were  singing  as  they  sat  by  the  side  of  their 
beasts.  Sound  travels  as  far  over  sand  as  over 
water,  and  their  voices  came  into  the  city  wall 
and  beat  against  it  in  multiplied  echoes. 

Then  he  returned  to  the  House  of  Strange 
Stories — the  Dak-Bungalow — and  passed  the 
time  o'  day  to  the  genial,  light-hearted  bagman 
— a  Cockney,  in  whose  heart  there  was  no 
thought  of  India,  though  he  had  travelled  for 
years  throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  the 
Empire  and  over  ^N"ew  Burma  as  well.  There 
was  a  fort  in  Jodhpur,  but  you  see  that  was  not 
in  his  line  of  business  exactly,  and  there  were 
stables,  but  "  you  may  take  my  word  for  it, 
them  who  has  much  to  do  with  horses  is  a  bad 
lot.  You  get  hold  of  the  Maharaja's  coachman 
and  he'll  drive  you  all  round  the  shop.  I'm  only 
waiting  here  collecting  money."  Jodhpur  dak- 
bungalow  seems  to  be  full  of  men  "  waiting 
here."  They  lie  in  long  chairs  in  the  verandah 


Letters   of  Marque  151 

and  tell  each  other  interminable  stories,  or  stare 
citywards  and  express  their  opinion  of  some 
dilatory  debtor  in  language  punctuated  by  free 
spitting.  They  are  all  waiting  for  something; 
and  they  vary  the  monotony  of  a  life  they  make 
wilfully  dull  beyond -words,  by  waging  war  with 
the  dak-bungalow  khansama.  Then  they  return 
to  their  long  chairs,  or  their  couches,  and  sleep. 
Some  of  them,  in  old  days,  used  to  wait  as  long 
as  six  weeks — six  weeks  in  May,  when  the  sixty 
miles  from  Marwar  Junction  to  Jodhpur  was 
covered  in  three  days  by  slow-pacing  bullock 
carts!  Some  of  them  are  bagmen,  able  to  de- 
scribe the  demerits  of  every  dak-bungalow  from 
the  Peshin  to  Pagan,  and  southward  to  Hyder- 
abad— men  of  substance  who  have  "  The 
Trades  "  at  their  back.  It  is  a  terrible  thing  to 
be  in  "  The  Trades,"  that  great  Doomsday 
Book  of  Calcutta,  in  whose  pages  are  written 
the  names  of  doubtful  debtors.  Let  light-heart- 
ed purchasers  take  note. 

And  the  others,  who  wait  and  swear  and  spit 
and  exchange  anecdotes — what  are  they  ?  Bum- 
mers, land-sharks,  skirmishers  for  their  bread. 
It  would  be  cruel  in  a  fellow-tramp  to  call  them 
loafers.  Their  lien  upon  the  State  may  have  its 
origin  in  horses,  or  anything  else ;  for  the  State 
buys  anything  vendible,  from  Abdul  Raymon's 


152  Letters  of  Marque 

most  promising  importations  to — a  patent,  self- 
acting  corkscrew.  They  are  a  mixed  crew,  but 
amusing  and  full  of  strange  stories  of  adventure 
by  land  and  by  sea.  And  their  ends  are  as 
curiously  brutal  as  their  lives.  A  wanderer  was 
once  swept  into  the  great,  still  backwater  that 
divides  the  loaferdom  of  Upper  India — that  is 
to  say,  Calcutta  and  Bombay — from  the  north- 
going  current  of  Madras,  where  Nym  and 
Pistol  are  highly  finished  articles  with  certifi- 
cates. This  backwater  is  a  dangerous  place  to 
break  down  in,  as  the  men  on  the  road  know 
well.  "  You  can  run  Rajputana  in  a  pair  o'  sack 
breeches  an'  an  old  hat,  but  go  to  Central  Injia 
with  pice,"  says  the  wisdom  of  the  road.  So 
the  waif  died  in  the  bazaar,  and  the  Barrack- 
master  Sahib  gave  orders  for  his  burial.  It 
might  have  been  the  bazaar  sergeant,  or  it  might 
have  been  an  hireling  who  was  charged  with  the 
disposal  of  the  body.  At  any  rate,  it  was  an 
Irishman  who  said  to  the  Barrack-master  Sa- 
hib:— "Fwhat  about  that  loafer?"  "Well, 
what's  the  matter  ?"  "  I'm  considtherin  whether 
I'm  to  mash  in  his  thick  head,  or  to  break  his 
long  legs.  He  won't  fit  the  storecoffin  anyways." 
Here  the  story  ends.  It  may  be  an  old  one ; 
but  it  struck  the  Englishman  as  being  rather  un- 
sympathetic in  its  nature ;  and  he  has  preserved 


Letters  of  Marque  153 

it  for  this  reason.  Were  the  Englishman  a  mere 
Secretary  of  State  instead  of  an  enviable  and 
unshackled  vagabond,  he  would  remodel  that 
Philanthropic  Institution  for  Teaching  Young 
Subalterns  how  to  Spell — variously  called  the 
Intelligence  and  the  Political  Department — 
and  giving  each  omedwar  the  pair  of  sack 
breeches  and  old  hat,  above  prescribed,  would 
send  him  out  for  a  twelvemonth  on  the  road. 
Not  that  he  might  learn  to  swear  Australian 
oaths  (which  are  superior  to  any  ones  in  the 
market)  or  to  drink  bazaar-drinks  (which  are 
very  bad  indeed),  but  in  order  that  he  might 
gain  an  insight  into  the  tertiary  politics  of 
States — things  less  imposing  than  succession- 
cases  and  less  wearisome  than  boundary  dis- 
putes, but — here  speaks  Ferdinand  Count 
Fathom,  in  an  Intermediate  compartment,  very 
drunk  and  very  happy — "  Worth  knowing  a 
little — Oh  no !  Not  at  all." 

A  small  volume  might  be  written  of  the  ways 
and  the  tales  of  Indian  loafers  of  the  more  bril- 
liant order — such  Chevaliers  of  the  Order  of 
Industry  as  would  throw  their  glasses  in  your 
face  did  you  call  them  loafers.  They  are  a 
genial,  blasphemous,  blustering  crew,  and  pre- 
eminent even  in  a  land  of  liars. 


154  Letters  of  Marque 


XIII. 

A  King's  House  and  Country.     Further  Con- 
sideration of  the  Hat-marked  Caste. 

THE  hospitality  that  spreads  tables  in  the 
wilderness,  and  shifts  the  stranger  from 
the  back  of  the  hired  camel  into  the  two-horse 
victoria,  must  be  experienced  to  be  appreciated. 

To  those  unacquainted  with  the  peculiarities 
of  the  native-trained  horse,  this  advice  may  be 
worth  something.  Sit  as  far  back  as  ever  you 
can,  and,  if  Oriental  courtesy  have  put  an  Eng- 
lish bit  and  bridoon  in  a  mouth  by  education 
intended  for  a  spiked  curb,  leave  the  whole  con- 
traption alone.  Once  acquainted  with  the  com- 
parative smoothness  of  English  ironmongery, 
your  mount  will  grow  frivolous.  In  which  event 
a  four-pound  steeplechase  saddle,  accepted 
through  sheer  shame,  offers  the  very  smallest 
amount  of  purchase  to  untrained  legs. 

The  Englishman  rode  up  to  the  Fort,  and  by 
the  way  learnt  all  these  things  and  many  more. 
He  was  provided  with  a  racking,  female,  horse 
who  swept  the  gullies  of  the  city  by  dancing 
sideways. 


'Letters  of  Marque  155 

The  road  to  the  Fort  which  stands  on  the  Hill 
of  Strife,  wound  in  and  out  of  sixty-foot  hills, 
with  a  skilful  avoidance  of  all  shade ;  and  this 
was  at  high  noon,  when  puffs  of  heated  air  blew 
from  the  rocks  on  all  sides.  "  What  must  the 
heat  be  in  May  ?"  The  Englishman's  companion 
was  a  cheery  Brahmin,  who  wore  the  lightest  of 
turbans  and  sat  the  smallest  of  neat  little  coun- 
try-breds.  "  Awful !"  said  the  Brahmin.  "  But 
not  so  bad  as  in  the  district.  Look  there !"  and 
he  pointed  from  the  brow  of  a  bad  eminence, 
across  the  quivering  heat-haze,  to  where  the 
white  sand  faded  into  bleach  blue  sky,  and  the 
horizon  was  shaken  and  tremulous.  "  It's  very 
bad  in  summer.  Would  knock  you — Oh  yes — 
all  to  smash,  but  we  are  accustomed  to  it."  A 
rock-strewn  hill,  about  half  a  mile,  as  the  crow 
flies,  from  the  Fort  was  pointed  out  as  the  place 
whence,  at  the  beginning  of  this  century,  the 
Pretender  Sowae  besieged  Raja  Maun  for  five 
months,  but  could  make  no  headway  against  his 
foe.  One  gun  of  the  enemy's  batteries  specially 
galled  the  Fort,  and  the  Jodhpur  King  offered 
a  village  to  any  of  his  gunners  who  should  dis- 
mount it.  "  It  was  smashed,"  said  the  Brah- 
min. "  Oh  yes,  all  to  pieces."  Practically, 
the  city  which  lies  below  the  Fort  is  indefensi- 
ble, and  during  the  many  wars  of  Marwar  has 


156  Letters  of  Marque 

generally  been  taken  up  by  the  assailants  with- 
out resistance. 

Entering  the  Fort  by  the  Jeypore  Gate,  and 
studiously  refraining  from  opening  his  um- 
brella, the  Englishman  found  shadow  and 
coolth,  took  off  his  hat  to  the  tun-bellied,  trunk- 
nosed  God  of  Good-Luck  who  had  been  very 
kind  to  him  in  his  wanderings,  and  sat  down 
near  half-a-dozen  of  the  Maharaja's  guns  bear- 
ing the  mark,  "A.  Broome,  Cossipore,  1857," 
or  "G.  Hutchinson,  Cossipore,  1838."  Now 
rock  and  masonry  are  so  curiously  blended  in 
this  great  pile  that  he  who  walks  through  it 
loses  sense  of  being  among  buildings.  It  is  as 
though  he  walked  through  mountain-gorges. 
The  stone-paved,  inclined  planes,  and  the  tunnel- 
like  passages  driven  under  a  hundred  feet  height 
of  buildings,  increase  this  impression.  In  many 
places  the  wall  and  rock  runs  up  unbroken  by 
any  window  for  forty  feet. 

It  would  be  a  week's  work  to  pick  out  even 
roughly  the  names  of  the  dead  who  have  added 
to  the  buildings,  or  to  describe  the  bewildering 
multiplicity  of  courts  and  ranges  of  rooms ;  and, 
in  the  end,  the  result  would  be  as  satisfactory  as 
an  attempt  to  describe  a  night-mare.  It  is  said 
that  the  rock  on  which  the  Fort  stands  is  four 
miles  in  circuit,  but  no  man  yet  has  dared  to 


Letters  of  Marque  157 

estimate  the  size  of  the  city  that  they  call  the 
Palace,  or  the  mileage  of  its  ways.  Ever  since 
Has  Joda,  four  hundred  years  ago,  listened  to 
the  voice  of  a  Fogi  and  leaving  Mundore  built 
his  eyrie  on  the  "  Bird's  Nest,"  as  the  Hill  of 
Strife  was  called,  the  Palaces  have  grown  and 
thickened.  Even  to-day  the  builders  are  still 
at  work.  Takht  Singh,  the  present  ruler's  pred- 
ecessor, built  royally.  An  incomplete  bastion 
and  a  Hall  of  Flowers  are  among  the  works  of 
his  pleasure.  Hidden  away  behind  a  mighty 
wing  of  carved  red  sandstone,  lie  rooms  set 
apart  for  Viceroys,  Durbar  Halls,  and  dinner- 
rooms  without  end.  A  gentle  gloom  covers  the 
evidences  of  the  catholic  taste  of  the  State  in 
articles  of  "  bigotry  and  virtue" ;  but  there  is 
enough  light  to  show  the  raison  d'etre  of  the 
men  who  wait  in  the  dak-bungalow.  And,  after 
all,  what  is  the  use  of  Royalty  in  these  days  if  a 
man  may  not  take  delight  in  the  pride  of  the 
eye?  Kumbha  Rana,  the  great  man  of  Chitor, 
fought  like  a  Eajput,  but  he  had  an  instinct 
which  made  him  build  the  Tower  of  Victory  at, 
who  knows,  what  cost  of  money  and  life.  The 
fighting-instinct  thrown  back  upon  itself,  must 
have  some  sort  of  outlet ;  and  a  merciful  Provi- 
dence wisely  ordains  that  the  Kings  of  the  East 
in  the  nineteenth  century  shall  take  pleasure  in 


158  Letters  of  Marque 

"  shopping  "  on  an  imperial  scale.  Dresden 
China  snuff-boxes,  mechanical  engines,  electro- 
plated fish-slicers,  musical  boxes,  and  gilt, 
blownglass,  Christmas-Tree  balls  do  not  go  well 
with  the  splendours  of  a  Palace  that  might  have 
been  built  by  Titans  and  coloured  by  the  morn- 
ing sun.  But  there  are  excuses  to  be  made  for 
Kings  who  have  no  work  to  do — at  least  such 
work  as  their  fathers  understood  best. 

In  one  of  the  higher  bastions  stands  a  curious 
specimen  of  one  of  the  earliest  mitrailleuses — a 
cumbrous  machine  carrying  twenty  gun-barrels 
in  two  rows,  which  small-arm  fire  is  flanked  by 
two  tiny  cannon.  As  a  muzzle-loading  imple- 
ment its  value  after  the  first  discharge  would  be 
insignificant;  but  the  soldiers  lounging  by  as- 
sured the  Englishman  that  it  had  done  good 
service  in  its  time :  it  was  eaten  with  rust. 

A  man  may  spend  a  long  hour  in  the  upper 
tiers  of  the  Palaces,  but  still  far  from  the  roof- 
tops, in  looking  out  across  the  desert.  There 
are  Englishmen  in  these  wastes,  who  say  gravely 
that  there  is  nothing  so  fascinating  as  the  sand 
of  Bikanir  and  Marwar.  "  You  see,"  explained 
an  enthusiast  of  the  Hat-marked  Caste,  "  yon 
are  not  shut  in  by  roads,  and  you  can  go  just  as 
you  please.  And,  somehow,  it  grows  upon  you 
as  you  get  used  to  it,  and  you  end,  /know,  by 


Letters  of  Marque  159 

falling  in  love  with  the  place."  Look  steadily 
from  the  Palace  westward  where  the  city  with 
its  tanks  and  serais  is  spread  at  your  feet,  and 
you  will,  in  a  lame  way,  begin  to  understand 
the  fascination  of  the  desert  which,  by  those 
who  have  felt  it,  is  said  to  be  even  stronger  than 
the  fascination  of  the  road.  The  city  is  of  red- 
sandstone  and  dull  and  sombre  to  look  at.  Be- 
yond it,  where  the  white  sand  lies,  the  country 
is  dotted  with  camels  limping  into  the  Eiwig- 
keit  or  coming  from  the  same  place.  Trees  ap- 
pear to  be  strictly  confined  to  the  suburbs  of  the 
city.  Very  good.  If  you  look  long  enough 
across  the  sands,  while  a  voice  in  your  ear  is 
telling  you  of  half-buried  cities,  old  as  old  Time 
and  wholly  unvisited  by  Sahibs,  of  districts 
where  the  white  man  is  unknown,  and  of  the 
wonders  of  far-way  Jeysulmir  ruled  by  a  half 
distraught  king,  sand-locked  and  now  smitten  by 
a  terrible  food  and  water  famine,  you  will,  if  it 
happen  that  you  are  of  a  sedentary  and  civilised 
nature,  experience  a  new  emotion — will  be  con- 
scious of  a  great  desire  to  take  one  of  the  lobbing 
camels  and  get  away  into  the  desert,  away  from 
the  last  touch  of  To-day,  to  meet  the  Past  face 
to  face.  Some  day  a  novelist  will  exploit  the 
unknown  land  from  the  Rann,  where  the  wild 
ass  breeds,  northward  and  eastward,  till  he  comes 


160  Letters  of  Marque 

to  the  Indus.  That  will  be  when  Rider  Hag- 
gard has  used  up  Africa  and  a  new  "  She  "  is 
needed. 

But  the  officials  of  Marwar  do  not  call  their 
country  a  desert.  On  the  contrary,  they  ad- 
minister it  very  scientifically  and  raise,  as  has 
been  said,  about  thirty-eight  lakhs  from  it.  To 
come  back  from  the  influence  and  the  possible 
use  of  the  desert  to  more  prosaic  facts.  Read 
quickly  a  rough  record  of  things  in  modern 
Marwar.  The  old  is  drawn  in  Tod,  who  speaks 
the  truth.  The  Maharaja's  right-hand  in  the 
work  of  the  State  is  Maharaj  Sir  Pertab  Singh, 
Prime  Minister,  A.-D.-C,  to  the  Prince  of 
Wales,  capable  of  managing  the  Marwari  who 
intrigues  like  a — Marwari,  equally  capable,  as 
has  been  seen,  of  moving  in  London  Society, 
and  Colonel  of  a  newly-raised  "  crack  "  cavalry 
corps.  The  Englishman  would  have  liked  to 
have  seen  him,  but  he  was  away  in  the  desert 
somewhere,  either  marking  a  boundary  or  look- 
ing after  a  succession  case.  Not  very  long  ago, 
as  the  Setts  of  Ajmir  knew  well,  there  was  a 
State  debt  of  fifty  lakhs.  This  has  now  been 
changed  into  a  surplus  of  three  lakhs,  and  the 
revenue  is  growing.  Also,  the  simple  Dacoit  who 
used  to  enjoy  himself  very  pleasantly,  has  been 
put  into  a  department,  and  the  Thug  with  him, 


Letters  of  Marque  161 

Consequently,  for  the  department  takes  a 
genuine  interest  in  this  form  of  shikar,  and  the 
gaol  leg-irons  are  not  too  light,  dacoities  have 
been  reduced  to  such  an  extent  that  men  say 
"  you  may  send  a  woman,  with  her  ornaments 
upon  her,  from  Sojat  to  Phalodi,  and  she  will 
not  lose  a  nose-ring."  Also,  and  this  in  a  Rajput 
State  is  an  important  matter,  the  boundaries  of 
nearly  every  village  in  Marwar  have  been  de- 
marcated, and  boundary  rixes,  in  which  both 
sides  preferred  small-arm  fire  to  the  regulation 
lathi,  are  unknown.  The  open-handed  system 
of  giving  away  villages  had  raised  a  large  and 
unmannerly  crop  of  jaghirdars.  These  have  been 
taken  and  brought  in  hand  by  Sir  Pertab  Singh, 
to  the  better  order  of  the  State. 

A  Punjabi  Sirdar,  Har  Dyal  Singh,  has  re- 
formed, or  made  rather,  Courts  on  the  Civil  and 
Criminal  Side ;  and  his  hand  is  said  to  be  found 
in  a  good  many  sweepings  out  of  old  corners. 
It  must  always  be  borne  in  mind  that  every- 
thing that  has  been  done,  was  carried  through 
over  and  under  unlimited  intrigue,  for  Jodhpur 
is  a  Native  State.  Intrigue  must  be  met  with 
intrigue  by  all  except  Gordons  or  demi-gods; 
and  it  is  curious  to  hear  how  a  reduction  in 
tariff,  or  a  smoothing  out  of  some  tangled  Court, 
had  to  be  worked  by  shift  and  by-way.  The 


162  Letters  of  Marque 

tales  are  comic,  but  not  for  publication.  How- 
beit !  Har  Dayal  Singh  got  his  training  in  part 
under  the  Punjab  Government,  and  in  part  in 
a  little  Native  State  far  away  in  the  Himalayas, 
where  the  gumnameh  was  not  altogether  an  un- 
known animal.  To  the  credit  of  the  "  Pauper 
Province  "  be  it  said,  it  is  not  easy  to  circum- 
vent a  Punjabi.  The  details  of  his  work  would 
be  dry  reading.  The  result  of  it  is  good,  and 
there  is  justice  in  Marwar,  and  order  and  firm- 
ness in  its  administration. 

Naturally,  the  land-  revenue  is  the  most  inter- 
esting thing  in  Marwar  from  an  administrative 
point  of  view.  The  basis  of  it  is  a  tank  about 
the  size  of  a  swimming-bath,  with  a  catchment 
of  several  hundred  square  yards,  draining 
through  leeped  channels.  When  God  sends  the 
rain,  the  people  of  the  village  drink  from  the 
tank.  When  the  rains  fail,  as  they  failed  this 
year,  they  take  to  their  wells,  which  are  brackish 
and  breed  guinea-worm.  For  these  reasons  the 
revenue,  like  the  Republic  of  San  Domingo,  is 
never  alike  for  two  years  running.  There  are 
no  canal  questions  to  harry  the  authorities ;  but 
the  fluctuations  are  enormous.  Under  the 
Aravalis  the  soil  is  good:  further  north  they 
grow  millet  and  pasture  cattle,  though,  said  a 
Eevenue  Officer  cheerfully, — "  God  knows  what 


Letters  of  Marque  163 

the  brutes  find  to  eat."  Apropos  of  irrigation, 
the  one  canal  deserves  special  mention,  as  show- 
ing how  George  Stephenson  came  to  Jodhpur  and 
astonished  the  inhabitants.  Six  miles  from  the 
city  proper  lies  the  Balsamand  Sagar,  a  great 
tank.  In  the  hot  weather,  when  the  city  tanks 
ran  out  or  stank,  it  was  the  pleasant  duty  of  the 
women  to  tramp  twelve  miles  at  the  end  of  the 
day's  work  to  fill  their  lotahs.  In  the  hot 
weather  Jodhpur  is — let  a  simile  suffice.  Suk- 
kur  in  June  would  be  Simla  to  Jodhpur. 

The  State  Engineer,  who  is  also  the  Jodhpur 
State  Line,  for  he  has  no  European  subordi- 
nates, conceived  the  idea  of  bringing  the  water 
from  the  Balsamand  into  the  city.  Was  the 
city  grateful?  E~ot  in  the  least.  It  said  that 
the  Sahib  wanted  the  water  to  run  uphill  and 
was  throwing  money  into  the  tank.  Being  true 
Marwaris,  men  betted  on  the  subject.  The 
canal — a  built  out  one,  for  water  must  not  touch 
earth  in  these  parts — was  made  at  a  cost  of 
something  over  a  lakh,  and  the  water  came  down 
because  the  tank  was  a  trifle  higher  than  the 
city.  Now,  in  the  hot  weather,  the  women  need 
not  go  for  long  walks,  but  the  Marwari  cannot 
understand  how  it  was  that  the  "  waters  came 
down  to  Jodhpur."  From  the  Marwari  to 
money  matters  is  an  easy  step.  Formerly,  that 


164  Letters  of  Marque 

is  to  say  up  to  within  a  very  short  time,  the 
Treasury  of  Jodhpur  was  conducted  in  a  shift- 
less, happy-go-lucky  sort  of  fashion  not  uncom- 
mon in  Native  States,  whereby  the  Mahajuns 
"  held  the  bag  "  and  made  unholy  profits  on  dis- 
count and  other  things,  to  the  confusion  of  the 
Durbar  Funds  and  their  own  enrichment.  There 
is  now  a  Treasury  modelled  on  English  lines, 
and  English  in  the  important  particular  that 
money  is  not  to  be  got  from  it  for  the  asking, 
and  the  items  of  expenditure  are  strictly  looked 
after. 

In  the  middle  of  all  this  bustle  of  reform 
planned,  achieved,  frustrated  and  re-planned, 
and  the  never-ending  underground  warfare  that 
surges  in  a  Native  State,  moved  the  English 
officers — the  irreducible  minimum  of  exiles.  As 
a  caste,  the  working  Englishmen  in  Native 
States  are  curiously  interesting ;  and  the  travel- 
ler whose  tact  by  this  time  has  been  Wilfred- 
blunted  by  tramping,  sits  in  judgment  upon 
them  as  he  has  seen  them.  In  the  first  place, 
they  are,  they  must  be,  the  fittest  who  have 
survived;  for  though,  here  and  there,  you  shall 
find  one  chafing  bitterly  against  the  burden 
of  his  life  in  the  wilderness,  one  to  be  pitied 
more  than  any  chained  beast,  the  bulk  of  the 
caste  are  honestly  and  unaffectedly  fond  of  their 


Letters  of  Marque 

work,  fond  of  the  country  around  them,  and 
fond  of  the  people  they  deal  with.  In  each  State 
their  answer  to  a  certain  question  is  the  same. 
The  men  with  whom  they  are  in  contact  are 
"  all  right  when  you  know  them,  but  you've  got 
to  know  them  first  "  as  the  music-hall  song  says. 
Their  hands  are  full  of  work ;  so  full  that,  when 
the  incult  wanderer  said — "  What  do  you  find 
to  do  ?"  they  looked  upon  him  with  contempt 
and  amazement — exactly  as  the  wanderer  him- 
self had  once  looked  upon  a  Globe-Trotter,  who 
had  put  to  him  the  same  impertinent  query. 
And — but  here  the  Englishman  may  be  wrong 
— it  seemed  to  him  that  in  one  respect  their  lives 
were  a  good  deal  more  restful  and  concentrated 
than  those  of  their  brethren  under  the  British 
Government.  There  was  no  talk  of  shiftings  and 
transfers  and  promotions,  stretching  across  a 
Province  and  a  half,  and  no  man  said  anything 
about  Simla.  To  one  who  has  hitherto  believed 
that  Simla  is  the  hub  of  the  Empire,  it  is  discon- 
certing to  hear : — "  O  Simla !  That's  where  you 
Bengalis  go.  We  haven't  anything  to  do  with 
Simla  down  here."  And  no  more  they  have. 
Their  talk  and  their  interests  run  in  the  bound- 
aries of  the  States  they  serve,  and,  most  strik- 
ing of  all,  the  gossipy  element  seems  to  be  cut 
out  altogether.  It  is  a  backwater  of  the  river 


166  Letters  of  Marque 

of  Anglo-Indian  life — or  is  it  the  main  current, 
the  broad  stream  that  supplies  the  motive  power, 
and  is  the  other  life  only  the  noisy  ripple  on  the 
surface  ?  You  who  have  lived,  not  merely  looked 
at,  both  lives,  decide.  Much  can  be  learnt  from 
the  talk  of  the  caste — many  curious,  many 
amusing,  and  some  startling  things.  One  hears 
stories  of  men  who  take  a  poor,  impoverished 
State  as  a  man  takes  a  wife,  "  for  better  or 
worse,"  and,  moved  by  some  incomprehensible 
ideal  of  virtue,  consecrate — that  is  not  too  big  a 
word — consecrate  their  lives  to  that  State  in 
all  single-heartedness  and  purity.  Such  men  are 
few,  but  they  exist  to-day,  and  their  names  are 
great  in  lands  where  no  Englishman  travels. 
Again  the  listener  hears  tales  of  grizzled  diplo- 
mats of  Rajputana — Machiavellis  who  have 
hoisted  a  powerful  intriguer  with  his  own  in- 
trigue, and  bested  priestly  cunning,  and  the 
guile  of  the  Oswal,  simply  that  the  way  might 
be  clear  for  some  scheme  which  should  put 
money  into  a  tottering  Treasury,  or  lighten  the 
taxation  of  a  few  hundred  thousand  men — or 
both;  for  this  can  be  done.  One  tithe  of  that 
force  spent  on  their  own  advancement  would 
have  carried  such  men  very  far. 

Those  who  know  anything  of  the  internals  of 
government,  know  that  such  men  must  exist,  for 


Letters   of  Marque  167, 

their  works  are  written  between  the  lines  of  the 
Administration  Keports;  but  to  hear  about 
them  and  to  have  them  pointed  out,  is  quite  a 
different  thing.  It  breeds  respect  and  a  sense 
of  shame  and  frivolity  in  the  mind  of  the  mere 
looker-on,  which  may  be  good  for  the  soul. 

Truly  the  Hat-marked  Caste  are  a  strange 
people.  They  are  so  few  and  so  lonely  and  so 
strong.  They  can  sit  down  in  one  place  for 
years,  and  see  the  works  of  their  hands  and  the 
promptings  of  their  brain,  grow  to  actual  and 
beneficent  life,  bringing  good  to  thousands.  Less 
fettered  than  the  direct  servant  of  the  Indian 
Government,  and  working  over  a  much  vaster 
charge,  they  seem  a  bigger  and  a  more  large- 
minded  breed.  And  that  is  saying  a  good  deal. 

But  let  the  others,  the  little  people  bound  down 
and  supervised,  and  strictly  limited  and  income- 
taxed,  always  remember  that  the  Hat-marked 
are  very  badly  off  for  shops.  If  they  want  a 
necktie  they  must  get  it  up  from  Bombay,  and 
in  the  rains  they  can  hardly  move  about;  and 
they  have  no  amusements  and  must  go  a  day's 
railway  journey  for  a  rubber,  and  their  drink- 
ing water  is  doubtful;  and  there  is  rather  less 
than  one  lady  per  ten  thousand  square  miles. 

After  all,  comparative  civilisation  has  its  ad- 
vantages, 


168  Letters  of  Marque 


XIV. 

'Among  the  Houyhnhnmns. 

JODHPUR  differs  from  the  other  States  of 
Rajputana  in  that  its  Royalty  are  peculiarly 
accessible  to  an  inquiring  public.  There  are 
wanderers,  the  desire  of  whose  life  it  is  "  to 
see  Nabobs/7  which  is  the  Globe-trotter's  title 
for  any  one  in  unusually  clean  clothes,  or  an 
Oudh  Taluqdar  in  gala  dress.  Men  asked  in 
Jodhpur  whether  the  Englishman  would  like  to 
see  His  Highness.  The  Englishman  had  a 
great  desire  to  do  so,  if  His  Highness  would  be 
in  no  way  inconvenienced.  Then  they  scoffed : — 
"  Oh,  he  won't  durbar  you,  you  needn't  natter 
yourself.  If  he's  in  the  humour  he'll  receive 
you  like  an  English  country-gentleman."  How 
in  the  world  could  the  owner  of  such  a  place  as 
Jodhpur  Palace  be  in  any  way  like  an  English 
country-gentleman?  The  Englishman  had  not 
long  to  wait  in  doubt.  His  Highness  intimated 
his  readiness  to  see  the  Englishman  between 
eight  and  nine  in  the  morning  at  the  Raika- 
Bagh.  The  Raika-Bagh  is  not  a  Palace,  for  the 
lower  storey  and  all  the  detached  buildings 


Letters   of  Marque 

round  it  are  filled  with  horses.  Nor  can  it  in 
any  way  be  called  a  stable,  because  the  upper 
storey  contains  sumptuous  apartments  full  of 
all  manner  of  valuables  both  of  the  East  and  the 
West.  Nor  is  it  in  any  sense  a  pleasure-garden, 
for  it  stands  on  soft  white  sand,  close  to  a  multi- 
tude of  litter  and  sand  training  tracks,  and  is 
devoid  of  trees  for  the  most  part.  Therefore 
the  Raika-Bagh  is  simply  the  Raika-Bagh  and 
nothing  else.  It  is  now  the  chosen  residence  of 
the  Maharaja  who  loves  to  live  among  his  four 
hundred  or  more  horses.  All  Jodhpur  is  horse- 
mad  by  the  way,  and  it  behoves  anyone  who 
wishes  to  be  anyone,  to  keep  his  own  race-course. 
The  Englishman  went  to  the  Raika-Bagh,  which 
stands  half  a  mile  or  so  from  the  city,  and 
passing  through  a  long  room  filled  with  saddles 
by  the  dozen,  bridles  by  the  score,  and  bits  by 
the  hundred,  was  aware  of  a  very  small  ancl 
lively  little  cherub  on  the  roof  of  a  garden-house. 
He  was  carefully  muffled,  for  the  morning  was 
chill.  "  Good  morning,"  he  cried  cheerfully  in 
English,  waving  a  mittened  hand.  "  Are  you 
going  to  see  my  f aver  and  the  horses  ?"  It  was 
the  Maharaj  Kanwar,  the  Crown  Prince,  the 
apple  of  the  Maharaja's  eye,  and  one  of  the 
quaintest  little  bodies  that  ever  set  an  English- 
man disrespectfully  laughing.  He  studies  Eng- 


170  Letters  of  Marque 

lish  daily  with  one  of  the  English  officials  of  the 
State,  and  stands  a  very  good  chance  of  being 
thoroughly  spoiled,  for  he  is  a  general  pet.  Also, 
as  befits  his  dignity,  he  has  his  own  carriage  or 
carriages,  his  own  twelve-hand  stable,  his  own 
house  and  retinue,  and  everything  handsome 
about  him. 

A  few  steps  further  on,  in  a  little  enclosure 
in  front  of  a  small  two-storeyed  white  bunga- 
low, sat  His  Highness  the  Maharaja,  deep  in 
discussion  with  the  State  Engineer.  He  wore 
an  English  ulster,  and  within  ten  paces  of  him 
was  the  first  of  a  long  range  of  stalls.  There 
was  an  informality  of  procedure  about  Jodhpur 
which,  after  the  strained  etiquette  of  other 
States,  was  very  refreshing.  The  State  Engi- 
neer, who  has  a  growing  line  to  attend  to,  can- 
tered away,  and  His  Highness  after  a  few  intro- 
ductory words,  knowing  what  the  Englishman 
would  be  after,  said : — "  Come  along,  and  look 
at  the  horses."  Other  formality  there  was  abso- 
lutely none.  Even  the  indispensable  knot  of 
hangers-on  stood  at  a  distance,  and  behind  a 
paling,  in  this  most  rustic  country  residence. 
A  well-bred  fox-terrier  took  command  of  the 
proceedings,  after  the  manner  of  dogs  all  the 
world  over,  and  the  Maharaja  led  to  the  horse- 
boxes. But  a  man  turned  up,  bending  under 


Letters   of  Marque  171 

the  weight  of  much  bacon.  "Oh !  here's  the  pig 
I  shot  for  Udaipur  last  night.  You  see  that  is 
the  best  piece.  It's  pickled,  and  that's  what 
makes  it  yellow  to  look  at."  He  patted  the  great 
side  that  was  held  up.  "  There  will  be  a  camel 
sowar  to  meet  it  half  way  to  Udaipur ;  and  I 
hope  Udaipur  will  be  pleased  with  it.  It  was 
a  very  big  pig."  "  And  where  did  you  shoot 
it,  Maharaja  Sahib?"  "  Here,"  said  His  High- 
ness, smiting  himself  high  up  under  the  arm- 
pit. "  Where  else  would  you  have  it  ?"  Certainly 
this  descendant  of  Raja  Maun  was  more  like  an 
English  country-gentleman  than  the  English- 
man in  his  ignorance  had  deemed  possible.  He 
led  on  from  horse-box  to  horse-box,  the  terrier  at 
his  heels,  pointing  out  each  horse  of  note;  and 
Jodhpur  has  many.  "  There's  Raja,  twice  win- 
ner of  the  Civil  Service  Cup."  The  English- 
man looked  reverently,  and  Raja  rewarded  his 
curiosity  with  a  vicious  snap,  for  he  was  being 
dressed  over,  and  his  temper  was  out  of  joint. 
Close  to  him  stood  Autocrat,  the  grey  with  the 
nutmeg  marks  on  the  off-shoulder,  a  picture  of  a 
horse,  also  disturbed  in  his  mind.  JSText  to  him 
was  a  chestnut  Arab,  a  hopeless  cripple,  for  one 
of  his  knees  had  been  smashed  and  the  leg  was 
doubled  up  under  him.  It  was  Turquoise,  who, 
six  or  eight  years  ago,  rewarded  good  feeding  by 


172  Letters  of  Marque 

getting  away  from  his  sais,  falling  down  and 
ruining  himself,  but  who,  none  the  less,  has 
lived  an  honoured  pensioner  on  the  Maharaja's 
bounty  ever  since.  No  horses  are  shot  in  the 
Jodhpur  stables,  and  when  one  dies — they  have 
lost  not  more  than  twenty-five  in  six  years — his 
funeral  is  an  event.  He  is  wrapped  in  a  white 
sheet  which  is  strewn  with  flowers,  and,  amid 
the  weeping  of  the  saises,  is  borne  away  to  the 
burial  ground. 

After  doing  the  honours  for  nearly  half  an 
hour  the  Maharaja  departed,  and  as  the  Eng- 
lishman has  not  seen  more  than  forty  horses,  he  felt 
justified  in  demanding  more.  And  he  got  them. 
Eclipse  and  Young  Revenge  were  out  down- 
country,  but  Sherwood,  at  the  stud,  Shere  All, 
Conqueror,  Tynedale,  Sherwood  II. ,  a  maiden 
of  Abdul  Rahman's,  and  many  others  of  note, 
were  in,  and  were  brought  out.  Among  the  vet- 
erans, a  wrathful,  rampant,  red  horse  still,  came 
Brian  Boru,  whose  name  has  been  written  large 
in  the  chronicles  of  the  Indian  turf,  jerking  his 
sais  across  the  road.  His  near  fore  is  altogether 
gone,  but  as  a  pensioner  he  condescends  to  go  in 
harness,  and  is  then  said  to  be  a  "  handful." 
He  certainly  looks  it. 

At  the  two  hundred  and  fifty-seventh  horse, 
and  perhaps  the  twentieth  block  of  stables,  the 


Letters  of  Marque  173 

Englishman's  brain  began  to  reel,  and  he  de- 
manded rest  and  information  on  a  certain  point. 
He  had  gone  into  some  fifty  stalls,  and  looked 
into  all  the  rest,  and  in  the  looking  had  search- 
inglj  sniffed.  But,  as  truly  as  he  was  then 
standing  far  below  Brian  Boru's  bony  withers, 
never  the  ghost  of  a  stench  had  polluted  the  keen 
morning  air.  This  City  of  the  Houyhnhnmns 
was  specklessly  clean — cleaner  than  any  stable, 
racing  or  private,  that  he  had  been  into.  How 
was  it  done?  The  pure  white  sand  accounted 
for  a  good  deal,  and  the  rest  was  explained  by 
one  of  the  Masters  of  Horse : — "  Each  horse 
has  one  sals  at  least — old  Ringwood  he  had  four 
— and  we  make  'em  work;  If  we  didn't  we'd  be 
mucked  up  to  the  horses'  bellies  in  no  time. 
Everything  is  cleaned  off  at  once ;  and  whenever 
the  sand's  tainted  it's  renewed.  There's  quite 
enough  sand  you  see  hereabouts.  Of  course  we 
can't  keep  their  coats  so  good  as  in  other  stables, 
by  reason  of  the  rolling;  but  we  can  keep  'em 
pretty  clean." 

To  the  eye  of  one  who  knew  less  than  nothing 
about  horse-flesh,  this  immaculate  purity  was 
very  striking,  and  quite  as  impressive  was  the 
condition  of  the  horses,  which  was  English — 
quite  English.  Naturally,  none  of  them  were 
in  any  sort  of  training  beyond  daily  exercise,  but 


174  Letters  of  Marque 

they  were  fit  and  in  such  thoroughly  good  fettle. 
Many  of  them  were  out  on  the  various  tracks, 
and  many  were  coming  in.  Roughly,  two  hun- 
dred go  out  of  a  morning,  and  it  is  to  be  feared, 
learn  from  the  heavy  going  of  the  Jodhpur 
courses,  how  to  hang  in  their  stride.  This  is 
a  matter  for  those  who  know,  but  it  struck  the 
Englishman  that  a  good  deal  of  the  unsatisfac- 
tory performances  of  the  Jodhpur  stables  might 
be  accounted  for  by  their  having  lost  the  clean 
stride  on  the  sand,  and  having  to  pick  it  up 
gradually  on  the  less  holding  down-country 
courses — unfortunately  when  they  were  not  do- 
ing training  gallops,  but  the  real  thing.  This 
small  theory  is  given  for  instant  contradiction 
by  those  who  understand. 

It  was  pleasant  to  sit  down  and  watch  the 
rush  of  the  horses  through  the  great  opening — 
gates  are  not  affected — going  on  to  the  country- 
side where  they  take  the  air.  Here  a  boisterous, 
unschooled  Arab  shot  out  across  the  road  and 
cried  "  Ha !  Ha  I"  in  the  scriptural  manner, 
before  trying  to  rid  himself  of  the  grinning 
black  imp  on  his  back.  Behind  him  a  Cabuli — 
surely  all  Cabulis  must  have  been  born  with 
Pelhams  in  their  mouths — bored  sulkily  across 
the  road,  or  threw  himself  across  the  path  of  a 
tall,  mild-eyed  Kurnal-bred  youngster,  whose 


Letters  of  Marque  175 

cocked  ears  and  swinging  head  showed  that, 
though  he  was  so  sedate,  he  was  thoroughly  tak- 
ing in  his  surroundings,  and  would  very  much 
like  to  know  if  there  were  anybody  better  than 
himself  on  the  course  that  morning.  Impetuous 
as  a  school-boy  and  irresponsible  as  a  monkey, 
one  of  the  Prince's  polo  ponies,  not  above  racing 
in  his  own  set,  would  answer  the  query  by  riot- 
ing past  the  pupil  of  Parrott,  the  monogram  on 
his  body-cloth  flapping  free  in  the  wind,  and  his 
head  and  hogged  tail  in  the  elements  as  Uncle 
Remus  hath  it.  The  youngster  would  swing 
himself  round,  and  polka-mazurka  for  a  few 
paces,  till  his  attention  would  be  caught  by  some 
dainty  Child  of  the  Desert,  fresh  from  the  Bom- 
bay stables,  sweating  at  every  sound,  backing 
and  filling  like  a  rudderless  ship.  Then,  thank- 
ing his  stars  that  he  was  wiser  than  some  people, 
number  177  would  lob  on  to  the  track  and  settle 
down  to  his  spin  like  the  gentleman  he  was. 
Elsewhere,  the  eye  fell  upon  a  cloud  of  nameless 
ones,  purchases  from  Abdul  Rahman,  whose 
worth  will  be  proved  next  hot  weather,  when 
they  are  seriously  taken  in  hand — skirmishing 
over  the  face  of  the  land  and  enjoying  them- 
selves immensely.  High  above  everything  else, 
like  a  collier  among  barges,  screaming  shrilly,  a 
black,  flamboyant  Marwari  stallion  with  a  crest 


176  Letters  of  Marque 

like  the  crest  of  a  barb,  barrel-bellied,  goose- 
rumped  and  river-maned,  pranced  through  the 
press,  while  the  slow-pacing  waler  carriage- 
horses  eyed  him  with  deep  disfavour,  and  the 
Maharaj  Kanwar's  tiny  mount  capered  under 
his  pink,  roman  nose,  kicking  up  as  much  dust 
as  the  Foxhall  colt  who  had  got  on  to  a  lovely 
patch  of  sand  and  was  dancing  a  saraband  in  it. 
In  and  out  of  the  tangle,  going  down  to  or  com- 
ing back  from  the  courses,  ran,  shuffled,  rocketed, 
plunged,  sulked  or  stampeded  countless  horses 
of  all  kinds,  shapes  and  descriptions — so  that 
the  eye  at  last  failed  to  see  what  they  were,  and 
only  retained  a  general  impression  of  a  whirl  of 
bays,  greys,  iron  greys,  and  chestnuts  with 
white  stockings,  some  as  good  as  could  be  de- 
sired, others  average,  but  not  one  distinctly  bad. 
"  We  have  no  downright  bad  'uns  in  this 
stable.  What's  the  use?"  said  the  Master  of 
Horse  calmly.  "  They  are  all  good  beasts  and, 
one  with  another,  must  cost  more  than  a  thou- 
sand each.  This  year's  new  ones  bought  from 
Bombay  and  the  pick  of  our  own  studs,  are  a 
hundred  strong  about.  May  be  more.  Yes,  they 
look  all  right  enough ;  but  you  can  never  know 
what  they  are  going  to  turn  out.  Live-stock  is 
very  uncertain."  "And  how  are  the  stables 
managed :  how  do  you  make  room  for  the  fresh 


Letters  of  Marque 


stock  V  "Something  this  way.  Here  are  all  the 
new  ones  and  Parrott's  lot,  and  the  English 
colts  that  Maharaja  Pertab  Singh  brought  out 
with  him  from  Home.  Winterlake  out  o' 
Queens  Consort,  that  chestnut  with  the  two 
white  stockings  you're  looking  at  now.  Well, 
next  hot  weather  we  shall  see  what  they're  made 
of  and  which  is  who.  There's  so  many  that  the 
trainer  hardly  knows  'em  one  from  another  till 
they  begin  to  be  a  good  deal  forward.  Those 
that  haven't  got  the  pace,  or  that  the  Maharaja 
don't  fancy,  they're  taken  out  and  sold  for  what 
they'll  bring.  The  man  who  takes  the  horses 
out  has  a  good  job  of  it.  He  comes  back  and 
says  :  —  '  I  sold  such  and  such  for  so  much,  and 
here's  the  money!'  That's  all.  Well,  our  re- 
jections are  worth  having.  They  have  taken 
prizes  at  the  Poona  Horse  Show.  See  for  your- 
self. Is  there  one  of  those  there  that  you 
wouldn't  be  glad  to  take  for  a  hack,  and  look 
well  after  too  ?  Only  they're  no  use  to  us,  and  so 
out  they  go  by  the  score.  We've  got  sixty  rid- 
ing-boys, perhaps  more,  and  they've  got  their 
work  cut  out  to  keep  them  all  going.  What 
you've  seen  are  only  the  stables.  We've  got  one 
stud  at  Bellara,  eighty  miles  out,  and  they  come 
in  sometimes  in  droves  of  three  and  four  hun- 
dred from  the  stud.  They  raise  Marwaris  there 


178  Letters  of  Marque 

too,  but  that's  entirely  under  native  manage- 
ment. We've  got  nothing  to  do  with  that.  The 
natives  reckon  a  Mar  war  i  the  best  country-bred 
you  can  lay  hands  on;  and  some  of  them  are 
beauties !  Crests  on  'em  like  the  top  of  a  wave. 
Well  there's  that  stud,  and  another  stud  and, 
reckoning  one  with  another,  I  should  say  the 
Maharaja  has  nearer  twelve  hundred  than  a 
thousand  horses  of  his  own.  For  this  place 
here,  two  wagon-loads  of  grass  come  in  every 
day  from  Marwar  Junction.  Lord  knows  how 
many  saddles  and  bridles  we've  got.  I  never 
counted.  I  suppose  we've  about  forty  carriages, 
not  counting  the  ones  that  get  shabby  and  are 
stacked  in  places  in  the  city,  as  I  suppose  you've 
seen.  We  take  'em  out  in  the  morning,  a 
regular  string  all  together,  brakes  and  all;  but 
the  prettiest  turn-out  we  ever  turned  out  was 
Lady  Dufferin's  pony  four-in-hand.  Walers — 
thirteen-two  the  wheelers  I  think,  and  thirteen- 
one  the  leaders.  They  took  prizes  at  Poona. 
That  was  a  pretty  turn-out.  The  prettiest  in  In- 
dia. Lady  Duiferin,  she  drove  it  when  the  Vice- 
roy was  down  here  last  year.  There  are 
bicycles  and  tricycles  in  the  carriage  de- 
partment too.  I  don't  know  how  many, 
but  when  the  Viceroy's  camp  was  held, 
there  waa  about  one  a-piece  for  the  gentle- 


Letters  of  Marque  179 

men,  with  remounts.  They're  somewhere  about 
the  place  now,  if  you  want  to  see  them.  How 
do  we  manage  to  keep  the  horses  so  quiet  2 
You'll  find  some  o'  the  youngsters  play  the  goat 
a  good  deal  when  they  come  out  o'  stable,  but, 
as  you  say,  there's  no  vice  generally.  It's  this 
way.  We  don't  allow  any  curry-combs.  If  we 
did,  the  saises  would  be  wearing  out  their 
brushes  on  the  combs.  It's  all  elbow  grease  here. 
They've  got  to  go  over  the  horses  with  their 
hands.  They  must  handle  'em,  and  a  native 
he's  afraid  of  a  horse.  Now  an  English  groom, 
when  the  horse  is  doing  the  fool,  clips  him  over 
the  head  with  a  curry-comb,  or  punches  him  in 
the  belly ;  and  that  hurts  the  horse's  feelings.  A 
native,  he  just  stands  back  till  the  trouble  is 
over.  He  must  handle  the  horse  or  he'd  get 
into  trouble  for  not  dressing  him,  so  it  comes 
to  all  handling  and  no  licking,  and  that's  why 
you  won't  get  hold  of  a  really  vicious  brute  in 
these  stables.  Old  Ringwood  he  had  four  saises,, 
and  he  wanted  'em  every  one,  but  the  other 
horses  haven't  more  than  one  sals  a-piece.  The 
Maharaja  he  keeps  fourteen  or  fifteen  horses 
for  his  own  riding.  "Not  that  he  cares  to  ride 
now,  but  he  likes  to  have  his  horses ;  and  no  one 
else  can  touch  'em.  Then  there's  the  horse  that 
he  mounts  his  visitors  on,  when  they  come  for 


180  Letters  of  Marque 

pig-sticking  and  such  like,  and  then  there's  a 
lot  of  horses  that  go  to  Maharaja  Pertab  Singh's 
new  cavalry  regiment.  So  you  see  a  horse  can 
go  through  all  three  degrees  sometimes  before 
he  gets  sold,  and  be  a  good  horse  at  the  end  of 
it.  And  I  think  that's  about  all !" 

A  cloud  of  youngsters,  sweating  freely  and 
ready  for  any  mischief,  shot  past  on  their  way 
to  breakfast,  and  the  conversation  ended  in  a 
cloud  of  sand  and  the  drumming  of  hurrying 
hooves. 

In  the  Raika-Bagh  are  more  racing  cups  than 
this  memory  holds  the  names  of.  Chief est  of  all 
was  the  Delhi  Assemblage  Cup — the  Imperial 
Vase,  of  solid  gold,  won  by  Crown  Prince.  The 
other  pieces  of  plate  were  not  so  imposing.  But 
of  all  the  Crown  Jewels,  the  most  valuable  ap- 
peared at  the  end  of  the  inspection.  It  was  the 
small  Maharaj  Kanwar  lolling  in  state  in  a 
huge  barouche — his  toes  were  at  least  two  feet 
off  the  floor — that  was  taking  him  from  his 
morning  drive.  "  Have  you  seen  my  horses  ?" 
said  the  Maharaj  Kanwar.  The  four  twelve- 
hand  ponies  had  been  duly  looked  over,  and  the 
future  ruler  of  Jodhpur  departed  satisfied. 


'Letters  of  Marque  181 


XV. 

Treats  of  the  Startling  Effect  of  a  reduction  in 
Wages  and  the  Pleasures  of  Loaferdom. 
Paints  the  State  of  the  Boondi  Road  and  the 
Treachery  of  Ganesh  of  Situr. 


TWENTY-FIVE  per  cent,  reduction  all 
l\  room' an' no  certain  leave  when  you  wants 
it.  Of  course  the  best  men  goes  somewhere  else. 
That's  only  natural,  and  'eres  this  sanguinary 
down  mail  a  stickin'  in  the  eye  of  the  Khundwa 
down!  I  tell  you,  Sir,  India's  a  bad  place — a 
very  bad  place.  'Tisn't  what  it  was  when  I 
came  out  one  and  thirty  years  ago,  an'  the 
drivers  was  getting  their  seven  and  eight  ?un- 
dred  rupees  a  month  an'  was  treated  as  men." 
The  Englishman  was  on  his  way  to  Nasira- 
bad,  and  a  gentleman  in  the  Railway  was  ex- 
plaining to  him  the  real  reason  of  the  decadence 
of  the  Empire.  It  was  because  the  Rajputana- 
Malwa  Railway  had  cut  all  its  employes  twenty* 
five  per  cent.  And,  in  truth,  there  is  a  good 
deal  of  fine  free  language  where  gentlemen  in 
the  carriage  department,  foremen-fitters,  station 
and  assistant  stationmasters  do  foregather.  It 


182  Letters  of  Marque 

is  ungenerous  to  judge  a  caste  by  a  few  samples ; 
but  the  Englishman  had  on  the  road  and  else- 
where seen  a  good  deal  of  gentlemen  on  the 
Railway,  and  is  prepared  to  write  down  here 
that  they  spend  their  pay  in  a  manner  that 
would  do  credit  to  an  income  of  a  thousand  a 
month.  Now  they  are  saying  that  the  twenty- 
five  per  cent,  reduction  is  depriving  them  of 
the  pleasures  of  life.  So  much  the  better  if  it 
makes  them  moderately  economical  in  their  ex- 
penditure. Revolving  these  things  in  his  mind, 
together  with  one  or  two  stories  of  extravagance 
not  quite  fit  for  publication,  the  Englishman 
came  to  Nasirabad,  before  sunrise,  and  there 
to  a  tonga.  Imagine  an  icy  pause  of  several 
minutes  followed  by  language.  Quoth  Ram 
Baksh,  proprietor,  driver,  sais,  and  everything 
else,  calmly : — "  At  this  time  of  the  year  and 
having  regard  to  the  heat  of  the  sun  who  wants 
a  top  to  a  tonga?  I  have  no  top.  I  have  a  top, 
but  it  would  take  till  twelve  o'clock  to  put  it  on. 
And  behold,  Sahib,  Padre  Martum  Sahib  went 
in  this  tonga  to  Deoli.  All  the  officer  Sahibs  of 
Deoli  and  RTasirabad  go  in  this  tonga,  for  shi- 
Jcar.  This  is  a  '  shutin-tonga  P  ?  When  Church 
and  Army  are  brought  against  one,  argument  is 
in  vain.  But  to  take  a  soft,  office-bred  unfortu- 
nate into  the  wilderness,  upon  a  skeleton,  a  dia- 


Letters  of  Marque  183 

gram  of  a  conveyance,  is  brutality.  Earn  Baksh 
did  not  see  it,  and  headed  his  two  thirteen-hand 
rats  straight  towards  the  morning  sun,  along  a 
beautiful  military  road.  "  We  shall  get  to  Deoli 
in  six  hours/'  said  Ram  Baksh  the  boastful, 
and,  even  as  he  spoke,  the  spring  of  tho  tonga 
bar  snapt  "  mit  a  harp-like  melodious  twang." 
"  What  does  it  matter  ?"  said  Ram  Baksh. 
"Has  the  Sahib  never  seen  a  tonga-iron  break 
before  ?  Padre  Martum  Sahib  and  all  the  officer 
Sahibs  in  Deoli "— "  Ram  Baksh,"  said  the 
Englishman  sternly,  "  I  am  not  a  Padre  Sahib 
nor  an  officer  Sahib,  and  if  you  say  anything 
more  about  Padre  Martum  Sahib  or  the  officers 
in  Deoli  I  shall  grow  very  angry,  and  beat  you 
with  a  stick,  Ram  Baksh." 

"  Humph,"  said  Ram  Baksh,  "  I  knew  you 
were  not  a  Padre  Sahib."  The  little  mishap 
was  patched  up  with  string,  and  the  tonga  went 
on  merrily.  It  is  Stevenson  who  says  that  the 
"  invitation  to  the  road,"  nature's  great  morn- 
ing song,  has  not  yet  been  properly  understood 
or  put  to  music.  The  first  note  of  it  is  the  sound 
of  the  dawn-wind  through  long  grass,  and  the 
last,  in  this  country,  the  creaking  of  the  bullock 
wains  getting  under  way  in  some  unseen  serai. 
It  is  good,  good  beyond  expression,  to  see  the 
sun  rise  upon  a  strange  land  and  to  know  that 


184  Letters  of  Marque 

you  have  only  to  go  forward  and  possess  that 
land — that  it  will  dower  you  before  the  day  is 
ended  with  a  hundred  new  impressions  and,  per- 
haps, one  idea.  It  is  good  to  snuff  the  wind  when  it 
comes  in  over  grassy  uplands  or  down  from  the 
tops  of  the  blue  Aravalis — dry  and  keen  as  a 
new-ground  sword.  Best  of  all  is  to  light  the 
First  Pipe — is  there  any  tobacco  so  good  as  that 
we  burn  in  honour  of  the  breaking  day  ? — and, 
while  the  ponies  wake  the  long  white  road  with 
their  hooves  and  the  birds  go  abroad  in  com- 
panies together,  to  thank  your  stars  that  you  are 
neither  the  Subaltern  who  has  Orderly  Room, 
the  'Stunt  who  has  kacherri.,  or  the  Judge  who 
has  Court  to  attend;  but  are  only  a  loafer  in  a 
flannel  shirt,  bound,  if  God  please,  to  "  Little 
Boondi,"  somewhere  beyond  the  faint  hills 
across  the  plain. 

But  there  was  alloy  in  this  delight.  Men  had 
told  the  Englishman  darkly  that  Boondi  State 
had  no  love  for  Englishmen,  that  there  was  no- 
where to  stop,  and  that  no  one  would  do  anything 
for  money.  Love  was  out  of  the  question. 
Further,  it  was  an  acknowledged  fact  that  there 
were  no  Englishmen  of  any  kind  in  Boondi. 
But  the  Englishman  trusted  that  Ganesh  would 
be  good  to  him,  and  that  he  would,  somehow  or 
other,  fall  upon  his  feet  as  he  had  fallen  before. 


Letters  of  Marque  185 

The  road  from  Nasirabad  to  Deoli,  being  mili- 
tary in  its  nature,  is  nearly  as  straight  as  a 
ruler  and  about  as  smooth.  It  runs  for  the 
most  part  through  "  Arthurian  "  country,  just 
such  a  land  as  the  Knights  of  the  Round  Table 
went  a-looting  in — is  gently  sloping  pasture 
ground,  where  a  man  could  see  his  enemy  a 
long  way  off  and  "  ride  a  wallop  "  at  him,  as 
the  Morte  D'Arthur  puts  it,  of  a  clear  half 
mile.  Here  and  there  little  rocky  hills,  the  last 
off-shoots  of  the  Aravalis  to  the  west,  break  the 
ground;  but  the  bulk  of  it  is  fair  and  without 
pimples.  The  Deoli  Force  are  apparently  so 
utterly  Irregular  that  they  can  do  without  a 
telegraph,  have  their  mails  carried  by  runners, 
and  dispense  with  bridges  over  all  the  fifty-six 
miles  that  separate  them  from  JSTasirabad.  How- 
ever, a  man  who  goes  shikarring  for  any  length 
of  time  in  one  of  Ram  Baksh's  tongas  would 
soon  learn  to  dispense  with  anything  and  every- 
thing. "  All  the  Sahibs  use  my  tongas ;  I've 
got  eight  of  them  and  twenty  pairs  of  horses," 
said  Ram  Baksh.  "  They  go  as  far  as  Gangra, 
where  the  tigers  are,  for  they  are  'shutin-ton- 
gas.' '  Now  the  Englishman  knew  Gangra 
slightly,  having  seen  it  on  the  way  to  Udaipur ; 
and  it  was  as  perverse  and  rocky  a  place  as  any 
man  would  desire  to  see.  He  politely  expressed 


186  Letters  of  Marque 

doubt.  "  I  tell  you  my  tongas  go  anywhere," 
said  Earn  Baksh  testily.  A  hay-waggon — they 
cut  and  stack  their  hay  in  these  parts — blocked 
the  road.  Ram  Baksh  ran  the  tonga  to  one  side, 
into  a  rut,  fetched  up  on  a  tree-stump,  rebounded 
on  to  a  rock,  and  struck  the  kunkur.  "  Ob- 
serve," said  Ram  Baksh ;  "  but  that  is  nothing1. 
You  wait  till  we  get  on  the  Boondi  road  and  I'll 
make  you  shake,  shake  like  a  ~botal"  "  Is  it 
very  bad  ?"  "  I've  never  been  to  Boondi  my- 
self, but  I  hear  it  is  all  rocks — great  rocks  as  big 
as  the  tonga."  But  though  he  boasted  of  him- 
self and  his  horses  nearly  all  the  way,  he  could 
not  reach  Deoli  in  anything  like  the  time  he  had 
set  forth.  "  If  I  am  not  at  Boondi  by  four,"  he 
had  said,  at  six  in  the  morning,  "  let  me  go  with- 
out my  fare."  But  by  midday  he  was  still  far 
from  Deoli,  and  Boondi  lay  twenty-eight  miles 
beyond  that  station.  "  What  can  I  do  ?"  said 
he.  "  I've  laid  out  lots  of  horses — any  amount. 
But  the  fact  is  I've  never  been  to  Boondi.  I 
shan't  go  there  in  the  night."  Ram  Baksh's 
"  lots  of  horses  "  were  three  pair  between  JSTasi- 
rabad  and  Deoli — three  pair  of  undersized  ponies 
who  did  wonders.  One  place,  after  he  had  quit- 
ted a  cotton  waggon,  a  drove  of  Bunjaras  and 
a  man  on  horseback,  with  his  carbine  across  his 
saddle-bow,  the  Englishman  came  to  a  stretch  of 


Letters  of  Marque  187, 

road,  so  utterly  desolate  that  he  said : — "  Now 
I  am  clear  of  everybody  who  ever  knew  me. 
This  is  the  beginning  of  the  waste  into  which 
the  scape-goat  was  sent." 

From  a  bush  by  the  road  side  sprang  up  a 
fat  man  who  cried  aloud  in  English : — "  How 
does  Your  Honour  do  ?  I  met  Your  Honour  in 
Simla  this  year!  Are  you  quite  well?  Ya-as, 
I  am  here.  Your  Honour  remembers  me?  I 
am  travelling.  Ya-as.  Ha!  Ha!"  and  he  went 
on,  leaving  His  Honour  bemazed.  It  was  a 
Babu — a  Simla  Babu,  of  that  there  could  be 
110  doubt ;  but  who  he  was  or  what  he  was  doing, 
thirty  miles  from  anywhere,  His  Honour  could 
not  make  out.  The  native  moves  about  more 
than  most  folk,  except  railway  people,  imagine. 
The  big  banking  firms  of  Upper  India  naturally 
keep  in  close  touch  with  their  great  change- 
houses  in  Ajmir,  despatching  and  receiving 
messengers  regularly.  So  it  comes  to  pass  that 
the  necessitous  circumstances  of  Lieutenant  Mc- 
Rannamack,  of  the  Tyneside  Tail-twisters, 
quartered  on  the  Frontier,  are  thoroughly 
known  and  discussed,  a  thousand  miles  south  of 
the  cantonment  where  the  light-hearted  Lieu- 
tenant goes  to  the  "  beastly  shroff" 

This  is  by  the  way.  Let  us  return  to  the 
banks  of  the  Banas  river,  where  "  poor  Carey," 


188  Letters  of  Marque 

as  Tod  calls  him,  came  when  he  was  sickening 
for  his  last  illness.  The  Baiias  is  one  of  those 
streams  which  runs  "  over  golden  sands  with 
feet  of  silver,"  but,  from  the  scarp  of  its  banks, 
Deoli  in  the  rains  must  be  isolated.  Ram 
Baksh,  questioned  hereon,  vowed  that  all  the 
Officer  Sahibs  never  dreamed  of  halting,  but 
went  over  in  boats  or  on  elephants.  According 
to  Ram  Baksh  the  men  of  Deoli  must  be  wonder- 
ful creatures.  They  do  nothing  but  use  his 
tongas.  A  break  in  some  low  hills  give  on  to  the 
dead  flat  plain  in  which  Deoli  stands.  "  You 
must  stop  here  for  the  night/7  said  Ram  Baksh. 
"  I  will  not  take  my  horses  forward  in  the  dark ; 
God  knows  where  the  dak-bungalow  is.  I've  for- 
gotten, but  any  one  of  the  Officer  Sahibs  in 
Deoli  will  tell  you."  Those  in  search  of  a  new 
emotion  would  do  well  to  run  about  an  ap- 
parently empty  cantonment,  in  a  disgraceful 
shooting-tonga,  in  search  of  a  place  to  sleep  in. 
Chaprassis  come  out  of  the  back  verandahs,  and 
are  rude,  and  regimental  Babus  hop  out  of  go- 
downs  and  are  flippant,  while  in  the  distance  a 
Sahib  looks  out  of  his  room,  where  he  has  evi- 
dently been  sleeping,  and  eyes  the  dusty  forlorn- 
hope  with  silent  contempt.  It  should  be  men- 
tioned that  the  dust  on  the  Deoli  road  not  only 


Letters  of  Marque  189 

powders  but  masks  the  face  and  raiment  of  the 
passenger. 

Next  morning  Ram  Baksh  was  awake  with 
the  dawn,  and  clamorous  to  go  on  to  Boondi. 
"  I've  sent  a  pair  of  horses,  big  horses,  out  there 
and  the  sais  is  a  fool.  Perhaps  they  will  be  lost, 
I  want  to  find  them."  He  dragged  his  unhappy 
passenger  on  to  the  road  once  more  and  demand- 
ed of  all  who  passed  the  dak-bungalow  which 
was  the  way  to  Boondi.  "  Observe !"  said  he, 
"  there  can  be  only  one  road,  and  if  I  hit  it  we 
are  all  right,  and  I'll  show  you  what  the  tonga 
can  do."  "  Amen,"  said  the  Englishman  de- 
voutly, as  the  tonga  jumped  into  and  out  of  a 
larger  hole.  "  Without  doubt  this  is  the  Boondi 
road,"  said  Earn  Baksh;  "it  is  so  bad." 

Beyond  Deoli  the  cultivated  land  gave  place 
to  more  hills  peppered  with  stones,  stretches  of 
rtfc-scrub  and  clumps  of  thorn  varied  with  a  lit- 
tle jhil  here  and  there  for  the  benefit  of  the 
officers  of  the  Deoli  Irregular  Force. 

It  has  been  before  said  that  the  Boondi  State 
has  no  great  love  for  Sahibs.  The  state  of  the 
road  proves  it.  "  This,"  said  Ram  Baksh,  tap- 
ping the  wheel  to  see  whether  the  last  plunge 
had  smashed  a  spoke,  "  is  a  very  good  road. 
You  wait  till  you  see  what  is  ahead."  And  the 
funeral  staggered  on — over  irrigation  cuts, 


190  Letters  of  Marque 

through  buffalo  wallows,  and  dried  pools 
stamped  with  the  hundred  feet  of  kine  (this  by 
the  way  is  the  most  cruel  road  of  all),  up  rough 
banks  where  the  rock  ledges  peered  out  of  the 
dust,  down  step-cut  dips  ornamented  with  large 
stones,  and  along  two-feet  deep  ruts  of  the 
rains,  where  the  tonga  went  slantwise  even  to 
the  verge  of  upsetting.  It  was  a  royal  road — 
a  native  road — a  Raj  road  of  the  roughest,  and, 
through  all  its  jolts  and  bangs  and  bumps  and 
dips  and  heaves,  the  eye  of  Ram  Baksh  rolled 
in  its  blood-shot  socket,  seeking  for  the  "  big 
horses  "  he  had  so  rashly  sent  into  the  wilder- 
ness. The  ponies  that  had  done  the  last  twenty 
miles  into  Deoli  were  nearly  used  up,  and  did 
their  best  to  lie  down  in  the  dry  beds  of  nullahs. 
\_Nota  ~bene. — There  was  an  unbridged  nullah 
every  five  minutes,  for  the  set  of  the  country 
was  towards  the  Mej  river.  In  the  rains  it 
must  be  utterly  impassable.] 

A  man  came  by  on  horseback,  his  servant 
walking  before  with  platter  and  meal  bag. 
"  Have  you  seen  any  horses  hereabouts  ?"  cried 
Ram  Baksh.  "  Horses !  horses !  •  What  the 
Devil  have  I  to  do  with  your  horses?  D'you 
think  I've  stolen  them?"  Now  this  was  de- 
cidedly a  strange  answer,  and  showed  the  rude- 
ness of  the  land.  An  old  woman  under  a  tree 


Letters   of  Marque  191 

cried  out  in  a  strange  tongue  and  ran  away.  It 
was  a  dream-like  experience,  this  hunting  for 
Worses  on  a  "  blasted  heath "  with  neither 
house  nor  hut  nor  shed  in  sight.  "  If  we  keep 
to  the  road  long  enough  we  must  find  them. 
Look  at  the  road !  This  Raj  ought  to  be  smitten 
with  bullets."  Ram  Baksh  had  been  pitched  for- 
ward nearly  on  to  the  off-pony's  rump,  and  was  in 
a  very  bad  temper  indeed.  The  funeral  found 
a  house — a  house  walled  with  thorns — and  near 
by  were  the  two  big  horses,  thirteen-two  if  an 
inch,  and  harnessed  quite  regardless  of  expense. 
Everything  was  re-packed  and  re-bound  with 
triple  ropes,  and  the  Sahib  was  provided  with 
an  extra  cushion;  but  he  had  reached  a  sort  of 
dreamsome  Nirvana;  having  several  times  bit- 
ten his  tongue  through,  cut  his  boot  against  the 
wheel-edge,  and  twisted  his  legs  into  a  true- 
lover's-knot.  There  was  no  further  sense  of 
suffering  in  him.  He  was  even  beginning  to 
enjoy  himself  faintly  and  by  gasps.  The  road 
struck  boldly  into  hills  with  all  their  teeth  on 
edge,  that  is  to  say,  their  strata  breaking  across 
the  road  in  a  series  of  little  ripples.  The  effect 
of  this  was  amazing.  The  tonga  skipped  mer- 
rily as  a  young  fawn,  from  ridge  to  ridge,  and 
never  seemed  to  have  both  wheels  on  the  ground 
at  the  same  time.  It  shivered,  it  palpitated,  it 


192  Letters  of  Marque 

shook,  it  slid,  it  hopped,  it  waltzed,  it  ricochet- 
ted,  it  bounded  like  a  kangaroo,  it  blundered  like 
a  sledge,  it  swayed  like  a  top-heavy  coach  on 
a  down-grade,  it  "  kicked  "  like  a  badly  coupled 
railway  carriage,  it  squelched  like  a  country- 
cart,  it  squeaked  in  its  torment,  and,  lastly,  it 
essayed  to  plough  up  the  ground  with  its  nose. 
After  three  hours  of  this  performance,  it  struck 
a  tiny  little  ford,  set  between  steeply-sloping 
banks  of  white  dust,  where  the  water  was  clear 
brown  and  full  of  fish.  And  here  a  blissful  halt 
was  called  under  the  shadow  of  the  high  bank  of 
a  tobacco  field. 

Would  you  taste  one  of  the  real  pleasures  of 
Life?  Go  through  severe  acrobatic  exercises  in 
and  about  a  tonga  for  four  hours;  then,  having 
eaten  and  drank  till  you  can  no  more,  sprawl, 
in  the  cool  of  a  nullah  bed  with  your  head 
among  the  green  tobacco,  and  your  mind  adrift 
with  the  one  little  cloud  in  a  royally  blue  sky. 
Earth  has  nothing  more  to  offer  her  children 
than  this  deep  delight  of  animal  well-being. 
There  were  butterflies  in  the  tobacco — six  differ- 
ent kinds,  and  a  little  rat  came  out  and  drank  at 
the  ford.  To  him  succeeded  the  flight  into 
Egypt.  The  white  bank  of  the  ford  framed  the 
picture  perfectly — the  Mother  in  blue,  on  a 
great  white  donkey,  holding  the  Child  in  her 


Letters  of  Marque  193 

arms,  and  Joseph  walking  beside,  his  hand 
upon  the  donkey's  withers.  By  all  the  laws  of 
the  East,  Joseph  should  have  been  riding  and 
the  Mother  walking.  This  was  an  exception  de- 
creed for  the  Englishman's  special  benefit.  It 
was  very  warm  and  very  pleasant,  and,  some- 
how, the  passers  by  the  ford  grew  indistinct, 
and  the  nullah  became  a  big  English  garden, 
with  a  cuckoo  singing  far  down  in  the  orchard, 
among  the  apple-blossoms.  The  cuckoo  started 
the  dream.  He  was  the  only  real  thing  in  it,  for 
the  garden  slipped  back  into  the  water,  but  the 
cuckoo  remained  and  called  and  called  for  all 
the  world  as  though  he  had  been  a  veritable 
English  cuckoo.  "  Cuckoo — cuckoo — cuck ;" 
then  a  pause  and  renewal  of  the  cry  from  an- 
other quarter  of  the  horizon.  After  that  the 
ford  became  distasteful,  so  the  procession  was 
driven  forward  and  in  time  plunged  into  what 
must  have  been  a  big  city  once,  but  the  only  in- 
habitants were  oil-men.  There  were  abundance 
of  tombs  here,  and  one  carried  a  life-like  carv- 
ing in  high  relief  of  a  man  on  horseback  spear- 
ing a  foot-soldier.  Hard  by  this  place  the  road 
or  rut  turned  by  great  gardens,  very  cool  and 
pleasant,  full  of  tombs  and  black-faced  monkeys 
who  quarrelled  among  the  tombs,  and  shut  in 
from  the  sun  by  gigantic  banians  and  mango 


194  Letters  of  Marque 

trees.  Under  the  trees  and  behind  the  walls, 
priests  sat  singing;  and  the  Englishman  would 
have  enquired  into  what  strange  place  he  had 
fallen,  but  the  men  did  not  understand  him. 

Ganesh  is  a  mean  little  god  of  circumscribed 
powers.  He  was  dreaming,  with  a  red  and 
flushed  face,  under  a  banian  tree;  and  the 
Englishman  gave  him  four  annas  to  arrange 
matters  comfortably  at  Boondi.  His  priest  took 
the  four  annas,  but  Ganesh  did  nothing  what- 
ever, as  shall  be  shown  later.  His  only  excuse 
is  that  his  trunk  was  a  good  deal  worn,  and  he 
would  have  been  better  for  some  more  silver  leaf , 
but  that  was  no  fault  of  the  Englishman. 

Beyond  the  dead  city  was  a  jhil,  full  of  snipe 
and  duck,  winding  in  and  out  of  the  hills ;  and 
beyond  the  jhil,  hidden  altogether  among  the 
hills,  was  Boondi.  The  nearer  to  the  city  the 
viler  grew  the  road  and  the  more  overwhelming 
the  curiosity  of  the  inhabitants.  But  what  be- 
rfel  at  Boondi  must  be  reserved  for  another 
chapter. 


Letters  of  Marque  195 


XVI. 

The  Comedy  of  Errors  and  the  Exploitation  of 
Boondi.  The  Castaway  of  the  Dispensary 
and  the  Children  of  the  Schools.  A  Con- 
sideration of  the  Shields  of  Rajasthan  and 
other  trifles. 

IT  is  high  time  that  a  new  treaty  were  made 
with  Maha  Kao  Raja  Earn  Singh,  Bahadur, 
Raja  of  Boondi.  He  keeps  the  third  article  of 
the  old  one  too  faithfully,  which  says  that  he 
"  shall  not  enter  into  negotiations  with  anyone 
without  the  consent  of  the  British  Government.7' 
He  does  not  negotiate  at  all.  Arrived  at  Boondi 
Gate,  the  Englishman  asked  where  he  might  lay 
his  head  for  the  night,  and  the  Quarter  Guard 
with  one  accord  said : — "  The  Sukh  Mahal, 
which  is  beyond  the  city/7  and  the  tonga  went 
thither  through  the  length  of  the  town,  of  which 
more  presently,  till  it  arrived  at  a  pavilion  on 
a  lake — a  place  of  two  turrets  connected  by  an 
open  colonnade.  The  "  house  "  was  open  to 
the  winds  of  heaven  and  the  pigeons  of  the  Raj ; 
but  the  latter  had  polluted  more  than  the  first 
could  purify.  A  snowy-bearded  chowkidar 


196  Letters  of  Marque 

crawled  out  of  a  place  of  tombs  which  he 
seemed  to  share  with  some  monkeys,  and  threw 
himself  into  Anglo-Saxon  attitudes.  He  was 
a  great  deal  worse  than  Ram  Baksh,  for  he  said 
that  all  the  Officer  Sahibs  of  Deoli  came  to  the 
Sukh  Mahal  for  shikar  and — never  went  away 
fegain,  so  pleased  were  they.  The  Sahib  had 
brought  the  honour  of  his  Presence,  and  he  was 
a  very  old  man,  and  without  a  purwana  could  do 
nothing.  Then  he  fell  deeply  asleep  without 
warning;  and  there  was  a  pause,  of  one  hour 
only,  which  the  Englishman  spent  in  seeing  the 
lake.  It,  like  the  jhils  on  the  road,  wound  in 
and  out  among  the  hills,  and,  on  the  bund  side, 
was  bounded  by  a  hill  of  black  rock  crowned 
with  a  Miatri  of  grey  stone.  Below  the  bund 
was  a  garden  as  fair  as  eye  could  wish,  and 
the  shores  of  the  lake  were  dotted  with  little 
temples.  Given  a  habitable  house — a  mere  dak- 
bungalow — it  would  be  a  delightful  spot  to  rest 
in.  Warned  by  some  bitter  experiences  in  the 
past,  the  Englishman  knew  that  he  was  in  for 
the  demi-semi-royal  or  embarrassing  reception, 
when  a  man,  being  the  unwelcome  guest  of  a 
paternal  State,  is  neither  allowed  to  pay  his 
way  and  make  himself  comfortable,  nor  is  he 
willingly  entertained.  When  he  saw  a  one- 
eyed  munshij  he  felt  certain  that  Ganesh  had 


Letters  of  Marque  197 

turned  upon  him  at  last.  The  munshi  de- 
manded and  received  the  purwana.  Then 
he  sat  down  and  questioned  the  traveller 
exhaustively  as  to  his  character  and  pro- 
fession. Having  thoroughly  satisfied  him- 
self that  the  visitor  was  in  no  way  connected 
with  the  Government  or  the  "  Agenty  Sahib 
Bahadur/'  he  took  no  further  thought  of  the 
matter;  and  the  day  began  to  draw  in  upon  a 
grassy  bund,  an  open  work  pavilion,  and  a  dis- 
consolate tonga. 

At  last  the  faithful  servitor,  who  had  helped 
to  fight  the  Battle  of  the  Mail  Bags  at  Udaipur, 
broke  his  silence,  and  vowing  that  all  these 
devil-people — not  more  than  twelve — had  only 
come  to  see  the  tamasha,  suggested  the  breaking 
of  the  munshi's  head.  And,  indeed,  that  seemed 
the  only  way  of  breaking  the  ice;  for  the 
munshi  had  in  the  politest  possible  language, 
put  forward  the  suggestion  that  there  was  noth- 
ing particular  to  show  that  the  Sahib  who  held 
the  purwana  had  really  any  right  to  hold  it.  The 
chowkidar  woke  up  and  chaunted  a  weird 
chaunt,  accompanied  by  the  Anglo-Saxon  atti- 
tudes, a  new  set.  He  was  an  old  man,  and  all 
the  Sahib-log  said  so,  and  within  the  pavilion 
were  tables  and  chairs  and  lamps  and  bath-tubs, 
and  everything  that  the  heart  of  man  could 


198  Letters  of  Marque 

desire.  Even  now  an  enormous  staff  of  khalas- 
sis  were  arranging  all  these  things  for  the  com- 
fort of  the  Sahib  Bahadur  and  Protector  of  the 
Poor,  who  had  brought  the  honour  and  glory  of 
his  Presence  all  the  way  from  Deoli.  What  did 
tables  and  chairs  and  eggs  and  fowls  and  very 
bright  lamps  matter  to  the  Raj  ?  He  was  an  old 
man  and.  .  .  ."Who  put  the  present  Raja  on 
the  guddee?"  "Lake  Sahib,"  promptly 
answered  the  chowkidar.  "  I  was  there.  That 
is  the  news  of  many  old  years."  Now  Tod  says 
it  was  he  himself  who  installed  "  Lalji  the  be- 
loved "  in  the  year  1821.  The  Englishman  be- 
gan to  lose  faith  in  the  chowkidar.  The  munshi 
said  nothing  but  followed  the  Englishman  with 
his  one  workable  eye.  A  merry  little  breeze 
crisped  the  waters  of  the  lake,  and  the  fish  be- 
gan to  frolic  before  going  to  bed. 

"  Is  nobody  going  to  do  or  bring  anything  ?" 
said  the  Englishman  faintly,  wondering 
whether  the  local  jail  would  give  him  a  bed  if 
he  killed  the  munshi.  "  I  am  an  old  man," 
said  the  chowkidar,  "  and  because  of  their  great 
respect  and  reverence  for  the  Sahib  in  whose 
Presence  I  am  only  a  bearer  of  orders  and  a 
servant  awaiting  them,  men,  many  men,  are 
bringing  now  Tcanats  which  I  with  my  own  hands 
will  wrap,  here  and  there,  there  and  here,  in 


Letters  of  Marque  199 

and  about  the  pillars  of  this  place;  and  thus 
you,  O  Sahib,  who  have  brought  the  honour  of 
your  Presence  to  the  Boondi  Raj  over  the  road 
to  Deoli,  which  is  a  kutcha  road,  will  be  pro- 
vided with  a  very  fine  and  large  apartment 
over  which  I  will  watch  while  you  go  to  kill  the 
tigers  in  these  hills." 

By  this  time  two  youths  had  twisted  Tcanats 
round  some  of  the  pillars  of  the  colonnade,  mak- 
ing a  sort  of  loose-box  with  a  two-foot  air-way 
all  round  the  top.  There  was  no  door,  but  there 
were  unlimited  windows.  Into  this  enclosure 
the  chowkidar  heaped  furniture  on  which  many 
generations  of  pigeons  had  evidently  been  car- 
ried off  by  cholera,  until  he  was  entreated  to 
desist.  "  What,"  said  he  scornfully,  "  are  tables 
and  chairs  to  this  Raj  ?  If  six  be  not  enough, 
let  the  Presence  give  an  order,  and  twelve  shall 
be  forthcoming.  Everything  shall  be  forthcom- 
ing." Here  he  filled  a  chirag  with  kerosene 
oil  and  set  it  in  a  box  upon  a  stick.  Luckily,  the 
oil  which  he  poured  so  lavishly  from  a  quart 
bottle  was  bad,  or  he  would  have  been  altogether 
consumed. 

Night  had  fallen  long  before  this  magnifi- 
cence was  ended.  The  superfluous  furniture — 
chairs  for  the  most  part — was  shovelled  out  into 
the  darkness  and  by  the  light  of  a  flamboyant 


200  Letters  of  Marqm 

cJiirag — a  merry  wind  forbade  candles — the 
Englishman  went  to  bed,  and  was  lulled  to  sleep 
by  the  rush  of  the  water  escaping  from  the  over- 
flow trap  and  the  splash  of  the  water-turtle  as 
he  missed  the  evasive  fish.  It  was  a  curious 
sight.  Cats  and  dogs  rioted  about  the  enclosure, 
and  a  wind  from  the  lake  bellied  the  kanats.  The 
brushwood  of  the  hills  around  snapped  and 
cracked  as  beasts  went  through  it,  and  creatures 
— not  jackals — made  dolorous  noises.  On  the 
lake  it  seemed  that  hundreds  of  water-birds 
were  keeping  a  hotel,  and  that  there  were  ar- 
rivals and  departures  throughout  the  night.  The 
Raj  insisted  upon  providing  a  guard  of  two  se- 
poys, very  pleasant  men  on  four  rupees  a  month. 
These  said  that  tigers  sometimes  wandered 
about  on  the  hills  above  the  lake,  but  were 
most  generally  to  be  found  five  miles  away.  And 
the  Englishman  promptly  dreamed  that  a  one 
eyed  tiger  came  into  his  tent  without  a  purwana. 
But  it  was  only  a  wild  cat  after  all ;  and  it  fled 
before  the  shoes  of  civilisation. 

The  Sukh  Mahal  was  completely  separated 
from  the  city,  and  might  have  been  a  country- 
house.  It  should  be  mentioned  that  Boondi  is 
jammed  into  a  Y-shaped  gorge — the  valley  at 
the  main  entrance  being  something  less  than 
five  hundred  yards  across.  As  it  splays  out,  the 


Letters  of  Marque  201 

thickly-packed  houses  follow  its  line,  and,  seen 
from  above,  seem  like  cattle  being  herded  to- 
gether preparatory  to  a  stampede  through  the 
gate.  Owing  to  the  set  of  the  hills,  very  little 
of  the  city  is  visible  except  from  the  Palace.  It 
was  in  search  of  this  latter  that  the  Englishman 
went  abroad  and  became  so  interested  in  the 
streets  that  he  forgot  all  about  it  for  a  tima 
Jeypore  is  a  show-city  and  is  decently  drained; 
Udaipur  is  blessed  with  a  State  Engineer  and 
a  printed  form  of  Government ;  for  Jodhpur  the 
dry  sand,  the  burning  sun,  and  an  energetic 
doctor  have  done  a  good  deal,  but  Boondi  has 
none  of  these  things.  The  crampedness  of  the 
locality  aggravates  the  evil,  and  it  can  only  be 
in  the  rains  which  channel  and  furrow  the  rocky 
hill-sides  that  Boondi  is  at  all  swept  out.  The 
!N~al  Sagar,  a  lovely  little  stretch  of  water,  takes 
up  the  head  of  the  valley  called  the  Banda 
Gorge,  and  must,  in  the  nature  of  things,  re- 
ceive a  good  deal  of  unholy  drainage.  But  set- 
ting aside  this  weakness,  it  is  a  fascinating  place 
— this  jumbled  city  of  straight  streets  and  cool 
gardens,  where  gigantic  mangoes  and  peepuls 
intertwine  over  gurgling  water-courses,  and  the 
cuckoo  comes  at  mid-day.  It  boasts  no  foolish 
Municipality  to  decree  when  a  house  is  danger- 
ous and  unhabitable.  The  newer  shops  are  built 


202  Letters  of  Marque 

into,  on  to,  over  and  under,  time-blackened 
ruins  of  an  older  day,  and  the  little  children 
skip  about  tottering  arcades  and  grass-grown 
walls,  while  their  parents  chatter  below  in  the 
crowded  bazaar.  In  the  back  slums,  the  same 
stones  seem  to  be  used  over  and  over  again  for 
house-building,  perhaps,  because  there  is  no 
space  to  bring  up  laden  buffaloes.  Wheeled  con- 
veyances are  scarce  in  Boondi  City — there  is 
scant  room  for  carts,  and  the  streets  are  paved 
with  knobsome  stones,  unpleasant  to  walk  over. 
From  time  to  time  an  inroad  of  Bun  jar  as'  pack- 
bullocks  sweeps  the  main  street  clear  of  life,  or 
one  of  the  Raja's  elephants — he  has  twelve  of 
them — blocks  the  way.  But,  for  the  most  part, 
the  foot  passengers  have  all  the  city  for  their 
own. 

They  do  not  hurry  themselves.  They  sit  in 
the  sun  and  think,  or  put  on  all  the  arms  in 
the  family,  and,  hung  with  ironmongery,  parade 
before  their  admiring  friends.  Other  men,  lean, 
dark  men,  with  bound  jaws  and  only  a  tulwar 
for  weapon,  dive  in  and  out  of  the  dark  alleys, 
on  errands  of  State.  It  is  a  blissfully  lazy  city, 
doing  everything  in  the  real,  true,  original  na- 
tive way,  and  it  is  kept  in  very  good  order  by 
the  Durbar.  There  either  is  or  is  not  an  order 
for  everything.  There  is  no  order  to  sell  fish- 


Letters  of  Marque  208 

ing-hooks,  or  to  supply  an  Englishman  with 
milk,  or  to  change  for  him  Currency  Notes.  He 
must  only  deal  with  the  Durbar  for  whatever 
he  requires;  and  wherever  he  goes  he  must  be 
accompanied  by  at  least  two  men.  They  will 
tell  him  nothing,  for  they  know  or  affect  to 
know  nothing  of  the  city.  They  will  do  nothing 
except  shout  at  the  little  innocents  who  joyfully 
run  after  the  stranger  and  demand  pice,  but 
there  they  are,  and  there  they  will  stay  till  he 
leaves  the  city,  accompanying  him  to  the  gate, 
and  waiting  there  a  little  to  see  that  he  is  fairly 
off  and  away.  Englishmen  are  not  encouraged 
in  Boondi.  The  intending  traveller  would  do 
well  to  take  a  full  suit  of  Political  uniform  with 
the  sun-flowers,  and  the  little  black  sword  to  sit 
down  upon.  The  local  god  is  the  "  Agenty 
Sahib/'  and  he  is  an  incarnation  without  a 
name — at  least  among  the  lower  classes.  The 
educated,  when  speaking  of  him,  always  use  the 
courtly  "  Bahadur  "  affix :  and  yet  it  is  a  mean 
thing  to  gird  at  a  State  which,  after  all,  is  not 
bound  to  do  anything  for  intrusive  Englishmen 
without  any  visible  means  of  livelihood.  The 
King  of  this  fair  city  should  declare  the  block- 
ade absolute,  and  refuse  to  be  troubled  with  any- 
one except  "  Colon-nel  Baltah  Agenty  Sahib 
Bahadur  "  and  the  Politicals.  If  ever  a  rail- 


Letters  of  Marque 

way  is  run  through  Kotah,  as  men  on  the  Bom- 
bay side  declare  it  must  be,  the  cloistered  glory 
of  Boondi  will  depart,  for  Kotah  is  only  twenty 
miles  easterly  of  the  city  and  the  road  is  moder- 
ately good.  In  that  day  the  Globe-Trotter  will 
pry  about  the  place,  and  the  Charitable  Dis- 
pensary— a  gem  among  dispensaries — will  be 
public  property. 

The  Englishman  was  hunting  for  the  statue 
of  a  horse,  a  great  horse  hight  Hunja,  who  was 
a  steed  of  Irak,  and  a  King's  gift  to  Rao  Omeda, 
one  time  monarch  of  Boondi.  He  found  it  in 
the  city  square  as  Tod  had  said;  and  it  was  an 
unlovely  statue,  carven  after  the  dropsical  fash- 
ion of  later  Hindu  art.  ~No  one  seemed  to  know 
anything  about  it.  A  little  further  on,  one  cried 
from  a  bye-way  in  rusty  English : — "  Come  and 
see  my  Dispensary."  There  are  only  two  men 
in  Boondi  who  speak  English.  One  is  the  head, 
and  the  other  the  assistant,  teacher  of  the  Eng- 
lish side  of  Boondi  Free  School.  This  third 
was,  some  twenty  years  ago,  a  pupil  of  the  La- 
hore Medical  College  when  that  institution  was 
young;  and  he  only  remembered  a  word  here 
and  there.  He  was  head  of  the  Charitable  Dis- 
pensary; and  insisted  upon,  then  and  there, 
organising  a  small  durbar, and  pulling  out  all  his 
books  for  inspection.  Escape  was  hopeless :  noth- 


Letters  of  Marque  205 

ing  less  than  a  formal  inspection  and  intro- 
duction to  all  the  native  Baids  would  serve. 
There  were  sixteen  beds  in  and  about  the  court- 
yard, and  between  twenty  and  thirty  out-pa- 
tients stood  in  attendance.  Making  allowances 
for  untouched  Orientalism,  the  Dispensary  is  a 
good  one,  and  must  relieve  a  certain  amount  of 
human  misery.  There  is  no  other  in  all  Boondi. 
The  operation-book,  kept  in  English,  showed  the 
principal  complaints  of  the  country.  They 
were : — "  Asthama,"  "  Numonia,"  "  Skin- 
diseas,"  "  Dabalaty,"  and  "  Loin-bite.7'  This 
last  item  occurred  again  and  again — three  and 
four  cases  per  week — and  it  was  not  until  the 
Doctor  said — "  Slier  se  mam  "  that  the  English- 
man read  it  aright.  It  was  "  lion-bite,"  or 
tiger,  if  you  insist  upon  zoological  accuracy. 
There  was  one  incorrigible  idiot,  a  handsome 
young  man,  naked  as  the  day,  who  sat  in  the 
sunshine,  shivering  and  pressing  his  hands  to 
his  head.  "  I  have  given  him  blisters  and  se- 
tons — have  tried  native  and  English  treatment 
for  two  years,  but  it  is  no  use.  He  is  always  as 
you  see  him,  and  now  he  stays  here  by  the  favour 
of  the  Durbar,  which  is  a  very  good  and  pitiful 
Durbar,"  said  the  Doctor.  There  were  many 
such  pensioners  of  the  Durbar — men  afflicted 
with  chronic  "  asthama "  who  stayed  "  by 


206  Letters  of  Marque 

favour,"  and  were  kindly  treated.  They  were 
resting  in  the  sunshine,  their  hands  on  their 
knees,  sure  that  their  daily  dole  of  grain  and 
tobacco  and  opium  would  be  forthcoming.  "  All 
folk,  even  little  children,  eat  opium  here,"  said 
the  Doctor,  and  the  diet-book  proved  it.  After 
laborious  investigation  of  everything,  down  to 
the  last  indent  to  Bombay  for  Europe  medi- 
cines, the  Englishman  was  suffered  to  depart. 
"  Sir,  I  thank .  .  .  . "  began  the  Native  Doctor, 
but  the  rest  of  the  sentence  stuck.  Sixteen  years 
in  Boondi  does  not  increase  knowledge  of  Eng- 
lish ;  and  he  went  back  to  his  patients,  gravely 
conning  over  the  name  of  the  Principal  of  the 
Lahore  Medical  School — a  College  now — who 
had  taught  him  all  he  knew,  and  to  whom  he 
intended  to  write.  There  was  something  pa- 
thetic in  the  man's  catching  at  news  from  the 
outside  world  of  men  he  had  known  as  Assistant 
and  House  Surgeons  who  are  now  Rai  Baha- 
durs, and  his  parade  of  the  few  shreds  of  Eng- 
lish that  still  clung  to  him.  May  he  treat  "  loin- 
bites  "  and  "  catrack  "  successfully  for  many 
years.  In  the  happy,  indolent,  fashion  that 
must  have  merits  which  we  cannot  understand, 
he  is  doing  a  good  work,  and  the  Durbar  allows 
his  Dispensary  as  much  as  it  wants. 

Close  to  the  Dispensary  stood  the  Eree  School, 


Letters  of  Marque  207 

and  thither  an  importunate  munshi  steered  the 
Englishman  who,  by  this  time,  was  beginning  to 
persuade  himself  that  he  really  was  an  a<o 
credited  agent  of  Government  sent  to  report  on 
the  progress  of  Boondi.  From  a  peepul-shaded 
courtyard  came  a  clamour  of  young  voices. 
Thirty  or  forty  little  ones,  from  five  to  eight 
years  old,  were  sitting  in  an  open  verandah  learn- 
ing hissab  and  Hindustani,  said  the  teacher. 
~No  need  to  ask  from  what  castes  they  came,  for 
it  was  written  on  their  faces  that  they  were  Ma- 
hajans,  Oswals,  Aggerwals,  and  in  one  or  two 
cases  it  seemed,  Sharawaks  of  Guzerat.  They 
were  learning  the  business  of  their  lives  and, 
in  time,  would  take  their  fathers'  places,  and 
show  in  how  many  ways  money  may  be  manipu- 
lated. Here  the  profession-type  came  out  with 
startling  distinctness.  Through  the  chubbiness 
of  almost  babyhood,  or  the  delicate  suppleness 
of  mature  years,  in  mouth  and  eyes  and  hands, 
it  betrayed  itself.  The  Rahtor,  who  comes  of 
a  fighting-stock,  is  a  fine  animal  and  well-bred ; 
the  Hara,  who  seems  to  be  more  compactly- 
built,  is  also  a  fine  animal;  but  for  a  race  that 
show  blood  in  every  line  of  their  frame,  from 
the  arch  of  the  instep  to  the  modelling  of  the 
head,  the  financial-^-trading  is  too  coarse  a 
word — the  financial  class  of  Rajputana  appears 


208  Letters  of  Marque 

to  be  the  most  remarkable.  Later  in  life  many 
become  clouded  with  fat  on  jowl  and  paunch; 
but  in  his  youth,  his  quick-eyed,  nimble  youth, 
the  young  Marwar,  to  give  him  his  business- 
title,  is  really  a  thing  of  beauty.  Also  his  man- 
ners are  courtly.  The  bare  ground  and  a  few 
slates  sufficed  for  the  children  who  were  merely 
learning  the  ropes  that  drag  States ;  but  the  Eng- 
lish class,  of  boys  from  ten  to  twelve,  was  sup- 
plied with  benches  and  forms  and  a  table  with  a 
cloth  top.  The  assistant  teacher,  for  the  head 
was  on  leave,  was  a  self-taught  man  of  Boondi, 
young  and  delicate  looking,  who  preferred  read- 
ing to  speaking  English.  His  youngsters  were 
supplied  with  "  The  Third  English  Reading 
Book/'  and  were  painfully  thumbing  their  way 
through  a  doggerel  poem  about  an  "  old  man 
with  hoary  hair."  One  boy,  bolder  than  the  rest, 
slung  an  English  sentence  at  the  visitor  and 
collapsed.  It  was  his  little  stock-in-trade,  and 
the  rest  regarded  him  enviously.  The  Durbar 
supports  the  school,  which  is  entirely  free  and 
open;  a  just  distinction  being  maintained  be- 
tween the  various  castes.  The  old  race  prejudice 
against  payment  for  knowledge  came  out  in  a 
reply  to  question. — "  You  must  not  sell  teach- 
ing," said  the  teacher,  and  the  class  murmured 
applausively : — "  You  must  not  sell  teaching." 


Letters  of  Marque  209 

The  population  of  Boondi  seems  more  ob- 
viously mixed  than  that  of  the  other  States. 
There  are  four  or  five  thousand  Mahomedans 
within  its  walls  and  a  sprinkling  of  aborigines 
of  various  varieties,  besides  the  human  raffle 
that  the  Bun  jar  as  bring  in  their  train,  with  Pa- 
thans  and  sleek  Delhi  men.  The  new  heraldry 
of  the  State  is  curious — something  after  this 
sort.  Or,  a  demi-man,  sable,  issuant  of  flames, 
holding  in  right  hand  a  sword  and  in  the  left  a 
bow — all  proper.  In  chief,  a  dagger  of  the  sec- 
ond, sheathed  vest,  fessewise  over  seven  arrows 
in  sheaf  of  the  second.  This  latter  blazon 
Boondi  holds  in  commemoration  of  the  defeat 
of  an  Imperial  Prince  who  rebelled  against  the 
Delhi  Throne  in  the  days  of  Jehangir,  when 
Boondi,  for  value  received,  took  service  under 
the  Mahomedan.  It  might  be,  but  here  there  is 
no  certainty,  the  memorial  of  Rao  Button's  vic- 
tory over  Prince  Khoorm,  when  the  latter  strove 
to  raise  all  Rajputana  against  Jehangir  his 
father;  or  of  a  second  victory  over  a  riotous 
lordling  who  harried  Mewar  a  little  later.  For 
this  exploit,  the  annals  say,  Jehangir  gave  Rao 
Rutton  honorary  flags  and  kettle-drums  which 
may  have  been  melted  down  by  the  science  of 
the  Herald's  College  into  the  blazon  aforesaid. 
FA11  the  heraldry  of  Rajputana  is  curious  and, 


210  Letters  of  Marque 

for  such  as  hold  that  there  is  any  worth  in  the 
"  Royal  Science,"  interesting.  Udaipur' s  shield 
is,  naturally  gules,  a  sun  in  splendor,  as  befits 
the  "  children  of  the  sun  and  fire,"  and  one  of 
the  most  ancient  houses  in  India.  Her  crest  is 
the  straight  Rajput  sword,  the  khanda;  for  an 
account  of  the  worship  of  which  very  powerful 
divinity  read  Tod.  The  supporters  are  a  Bhil 
and  a  Rajput,  attired  for  the  forlorn-hope; 
commemorating  not  only  the  defences  of  Chi- 
tor,  but  also  the  connection  of  the  great  Bappa 
Rawul  with  the  Bhils  who  even  now  play  the 
principal  part  in  the  Crown-Marking  of  a  Rana 
of  Udaipur.  Here,  again,  Tod  explains  the 
matter  at  length.  Banswara  claims  alliance  with 
Udaipur  and  carries  a  sun^  with  a  label  of 
difference  of  some  kind.  Jeypore  has  the  five- 
coloured  flag  of  Amber  with  a  sun,  because  the 
House  claim  descent  from  Rama,  and  her  crest 
is  a  kuchnar  tree,  which  is  the  bearing  of  Das- 
aratha,  father  of  Rama.  The  white  horse, 
which  faces  the  tiger  as  supporter,  may  or  may 
not  be  the  memorial  of  the  great  aswamedha 
yuga  or  horse  sacrifice  that  Jey  Singh,  who  built 
Jeypore,  did  not  carry  out, 

Jodhpur  has  the  five-coloured  flag,  with  a  fal- 
con, in  which  shape  Durga,  the  patron  Goddess 
of  the  State,  has  been  sometimes  good  enough  to 


Letters  of  Marque  211 

appear.  She  has  perched  in  the  form  of  a  wag- 
tail on  the  howdah  of  the  Chief  of  Jeysulmir, 
whose  shield  is  blazoned  with  u  forts  in  a  desert 
land,"  and  a  naked  left  arm  holding  a  broken 
spear,  because,  the  legend  goes,  Jeysulmir  was 
once  galled  by  a  horse  with  a  magic  spear.  They 
tell  the  story  to-day,  but  it  is  a  long  one.  The 
supporters  of  the  shield — this  is  canting  her- 
aldry with  a  vengeance! — are  antelopes  of  the 
desert  spangled  with  gold  coin,  because  the  State 
was  long  the  refuge  of  the  wealthy  bankers  of 
India. 

Bikanir,  a  younger  House  of  Jodhpur,  car- 
ries three  white  hawks  on  the  five-coloured  flag. 
The  patron  Goddess  of  Bikanir  once  turned  the 
thorny  jungle  round  the  city  to  fruit-trees,  and 
the  crest  therefore  is  a  green  tree — strange 
emblem  for  a  desert  principality.  The  motto, 
however,  is  a  good  one.  When  the  greater  part 
of  the  Rajput  States  were  vassals  of  Akbar,  and 
he  sent  them  abroad  to  do  his  will,  certain 
Princes  objected  to  crossing  the  Indus,  and  asked 
Bikanir  to  head  the  mutiny  because  his  State 
was  the  least  accessible.  He  consented,  on  con- 
dition that  they  would  all  for  one  day  greet  him 
thus : — "  Jey  Jangal  dar  Badshah !"  History 
shows  what  became  of  the  objector  and  Bikanir' s 
motto :— " Hail  to  the  King  of  the  Waste!" 


212  Letters  of  Marque 

proves  that  the  tale  must  be  true.  But  from 
Boondi  to  Bikanir  is  a  long  digression,  bred  by 
blissful  idleness  on  the  bund  of  the  Burra.  It 
would  have  been  sinful  not  to  let  down  a  line 
into  those  crowded  waters,  and  the  Guards,  who 
were  Mahomedans,  said  that  if  the  Sahib  did 
not  eat  fish,  they  did.  And  the  Sahib  fished 
luxuriously,  catching  two  and  three  pounders, 
of  a  perch-like  build,  whenever  he  chose  to  cast. 
He  was  wearied  of  schools  and  dispensaries, 
and  the  futility  of  heraldry  accorded  well  with 
laziness — that  is  to  say  Boondi. 

It  should  be  noted,  none  the  less,  that  in  this 
part  of  the  world  the  soberest  mind  will  believe 
anything — believe  in  the  ghosts  by  the  Gow 
Mukh,  and  the  dead  Thakurs,  who  get  out  of 
their  tombs  and  ride  round  the  Burra  Talao  at 
Boondi — will  credit  every  legend  and  lie  that 
rises  as  naturally  as  the  red  flush  of  sunset,  to 
gild  the  dead  glories  of  Kajasthan. 


Letters  of  Marque  213 


XVII. 

Shows  that  there  may  be  Poetry  in  a  Bank,  and 
attempts  to  show  the  Wonders  of  the  Palace 
of  Boondi. 

"  HPHIS  is  a  devil's  place  you  have  come  to, 
1  Sahib.  ~No  grass  for  the  horses,  and  the 
people  don't  understand  anything,  and  their 
dirty  pice  are  no  good  in  Nasirabad.  Look 
here  I"  And  Ram  Baksh  wrathfully  exhibited  a 
handful  of  lumps  of  copper.  The  nuisance  of 
taking  a  native  out  of  his  own  beat  is  that  he 
forthwith  regards  you  not  only  as  the  author  of 
his  being,  but  of  all  his  misfortunes  as  well.  He 
is  as  hampering  as  a  frightened  child  and  as 
irritating  as  a  man.  ft Padre  Martum  Sahib 
never  came  here,"  said  Ram  Baksh,  with  the  air 
of  one  who  had  been  led  against  his  will  into  bad 
company. 

A  story  about  a  rat  that  found  a  piece  of 
turmeric  and  set  up  a  bunnia's  shop  had  sent 
the  one-eyed  munshi  away,  but  a  company  of 
lesser  munshis,  runners  and  the  like,  were  in 
attendance,  and  they  said  that  money  might  be 
changed  at  the  Treasury,  which  was  in  the 


214  Letters  of  Marque 

Palace.  It  was  quite  impossible  to  change  it 
anywhere  else — there  was  no  ho okum.  From  the 
Sukh  Mahal  to  the  Palace  the  road  ran  through 
the  heart  of  the  city,  and  by  reason  of  the  con- 
tinual shouting  of  the  munshis,  not  more  than 
ten  thousand  of  the  fifty  thousand  people  of 
Boondi  knew  for  what  purpose  the  Sahib  was 
journeying  through  their  midst.  Cataract  was 
the  most  prevalent  affliction,  cataract  in  its 
worst  forms,  and  it  was,  therefore,  necessary 
that  men  should  come  very  close  to  look  at  the 
stranger.  They  were  in  no  sense  rude,  but  they 
stared  devoutly.  "He  has  not  come  for  shikar, 
and  he  will  not  take  petitions.  He  has  come  to 
see  the  place,  and  God  knows  what  he  is."  The 
description  was  quite  correct,  as  far  as  it  went ; 
but,  somehow  or  another,  when  shouted  out  at 
four  cross-ways  in  the  midst  of  a  very  pleasant 
little  gathering  it  did  not  seem  to  add  to  dignity 
or  command  respect. 

It  has  been  written  "  the  coup  d'oeil  of  the 
castellated  Palace  of  Boondi,  from  whichever 
side  you  approach  it,  is  perhaps  the  most  strik- 
ing in  India.  Whoever  has  seen  the  Palace  of 
Boondi  can  easily  picture  to  himself  the  hang- 
ing gardens  of  Semiramis."  This  is  true — and 
more  too.  To  give  on  paper  any  adequate  idea 
of  the  Boondi-ki-Mahal  is  impossible.  Jeypore 


Letters  of  Marque  215 

Palace  may  be  called  the  Versailles  of  India; 
Udaipur's  House  of  State  is  dwarfed  by  the 
hills  round  it  and  the  spread  of  the  Pichola 
lake;  Jodhpur's  House  of  Strife,  grey  towers 
on  red  rock,  is  the  work  of  giants;  but  the 
Palace  of  Boondi,  even  in  broad  day-light,  is 
such  a  Palace  as  men  build  for  themselves  in 
uneasy  dreams — the  work  of  goblins  more  than 
the  work  of  men.  It  is  built  into  and  out  of  hill 
side,  in  gigantic  terrace  on  terrace,  and  domi- 
nates the  whole  of  the  city.  But  a  detailed  de- 
scription of  it  were  useless.  Owing  to  the  dip 
of  the  valley  in  which  the  city  stands,  it  can 
only  be  well  seen  from  one  place,  the  main  road 
of  the  city;  and  from  that  point  seems  like  an 
avalanche  of  masonry  ready  to  rush  down  and 
whelm  the  gorge.  Like  all  the  other  Palaces  of 
Raj  put  ana,  it  is  the  work  of  many  hands,  and 
the  present  Raja  has  thrown  out  a  bastion  of  no 
small  size  on  one  of  the  lower  levels,  which  has 
been  four  or  five  years  in  the  building.  Only  by 
scaling  this  annex,  and,  from  the  other  side  of 
the  valley,  seeing  how  insignificant  is  its  great 
bulk  in  the  entire  scheme,  is  it  possible  to  get 
some  idea  of  the  stupendous  size  of  the  Palace. 
"No  one  knows  where  the  hill  begins  and  where 
the  Palace  ends.  Men  say  that  there  are  subter- 
ranean chambers  leading  into  the  heart  of  the 


216  Letters  of  Marque 

hills,  and  passages  communicating  with  tne  ex- 
treme limits  of  Taragarh,  the  giant  fortress 
that  crowns  the  hill  and  flanks  the  whole  of  the 
valley  on  the  Palace  side.  They  say  that  there 
is  as  much  room  under  as  above  ground,  and 
that  none  know  the  whole  extent  of  the  Palace. 
Looking  at  it  from  below,  the  Englishman  could 
readily  believe  that  nothing  was  impossible  for 
those  who  had  built  it.  The  dominant  impres- 
sion was  of  height — height  that  heaved  itself 
out  of  the  hillside  and  weighed  upon  the  eye- 
lids of  the  beholder.  The  steep  slope  of  the  land 
had  helped  the  builders  in  securing  this  effect. 
From  the  main  road  of  the  city  a  steep  stone- 
paved  ascent  led  to  the  first  gate — name  not  com- 
municated by  the  zealous  following.  Two 
gaudily  painted  fishes  faced  each  other  over  the 
arch,  and  there  was  little  except  glaring  colour 
ornamentation  visible.  This  gate  gave  into 
what  they  called  the  chowk  of  the  Palace,  and 
one  had  need  to  look  twice  ere  realising  that  this 
open  space,  crammed  with  human  life,  was  a 
spur  of  the  hill  on  which  the  Palace  stood,  paved 
and  built  over.  There  had  been  little  attempt 
at  levelling  the  ground.  The  foot-worn  stones 
followed  the  contour  of  tHe  ground,  and  ran  up 
to  the  walls  of  the  Palace  smooth  as  glass.  Im- 
mediately facing  the  Gate  of  the  Fish  was  the 


Letters  of  Marque  217 

Quarter-Guard  barracks,  a  dark  and  dirty  room, 
and  here,  in  a  chamber  hollowed  out  in  a  wall, 
were  stored  the  big  drums  of  State,  the  nakarras. 
The  appearance  of  the  Englishman  seemed  to 
be  the  signal  for  smiting  the  biggest  of  all  the 
drums,  and  the  dull  thunder  rolled  up  the 
Palace  chowk,  and  came  back  from  the  un- 
pierced  Palace  walls  in  hollow  groaning.  It 
was  an  eerie  welcome — this  single,  sullen  boom. 
In  this  enclosure,  four  hundred  years  ago,  if  the 
legend  be  true,  a  son  of  the  great  Rao  Bando, 
who  dreamed  a  dream  as  Pharaoh  did  and  saved 
Boondi  from  famine,  left  a  little  band  of  Haras 
to  wait  his  bidding  while  he  went  up  into  the 
Palace  and  slew  his  two  uncles  who  had  usurped 
the  throne  and  abandoned  the  faith  of  their 
fathers.  When  he  had  pierced  one  and  hacked 
the  other,  as  they  sat  alone  and  unattended,  he 
called  out  to  his  followers,  who  made  a  slaugh- 
ter-house of  the  enclosure  and  cut  up  the 
usurpers'  adherents.  At  the  best  of  times  men 
slip  on  these  smooth  stones ;  and  when  the  place 
was  swimming  in  blood,  foothold  must  have 
been  treacherous  indeed. 

An  inquiry  for  the  place  of  the  murder  of  the 
uncles — it  is  marked  by  a  staircase  slab,  or  Tod, 
the  accurate,  is  at  fault — was  met  by  the  answer 
that  the  Treasury  was  close  at  hand.  They 


218  Letters  of  Marque 

speak  a  pagan  tongue  in  Boondi,  swallow  half 
their  words,  and  adulterate  the  remainder  with 
local  patois.  What  can  be  extracted  from  a  peo- 
ple who  call  four  miles  variously  do  kosh,  do 
Icush,  dhi  Jchas,  doo-a  both,  and  diakast,  all  one 
word  ?  The  country-folk  are  quite  unintelligible ; 
which  simplifies  matters.  It  is  the  catching  of 
a  shadow  of  a  meaning  here  and  there,  the  hunt- 
ing for  directions  cloaked  in  dialect,  that  is  an- 
noying. Foregoing  his  archaeological  researches, 
the  Englishman  sought  the  Treasury.  He  took 
careful  notes ;  he  even  made  a  very  bad  drawing, 
but  the  Treasury  of  Boondi  defied  pinning  down 
before  the  public.  There  was  a  gash  in  the 
brown  flank  of  the  Palace — and  this  gash  was 
filled  with  people.  A  broken  bees'  comb  with 
the  whole  hive  busily  at  work  on  repairs,  will 
give  a  very  fair  idea  of  this  extraordinary  place 
— the  Heart  of  Boondi.  The  sunlight  was  very 
vivid  without  and  the  shadows  were  heavy  with- 
in, so  that  little  could  be  seen  except  this  clinging 
mass  of  humanity  huggling  like  maggots  in  a 
carcase.  A  stone  staircase  ran  up  to  a  rough 
verandah  built  out  of  the  wall,  and  in  the  wall 
was  a  cave-like  room,  the  guardian  of  whose 
snowy-carpeted  depths  was  one  of  the  refined 
financial  classes,  a  man  with  very  small  hands 
and  soft,  low  voice.  He  was  girt  with  a  sword, 


Letters   of  Marque  219 

and  held  authority  over  the  Durbar  funds.  He 
referred  the  Englishman  courteously  to  another 
branch  of  the  department,  to  find  which  necessi- 
tated a  blundering  progress  up  another  narrow 
staircase  crowded  with  loungers  of  all  kinds. 
Here  everything  shone  from  constant  contact 
of  bare  feet  and  hurrying  bare  shoulders.  The 
staircase  was  the  thing  that,  seen  from  without, 
had  produced  the  bees'  comb  impression.  At 
the  top  Was  a  long  verandah  shaded  from  the 
sun,  and  here  the  Boondi  Treasury  worked, 
under  the  guidance  of  a  grey-haired  old  man, 
whose  sword  lay  by  the  side  of  his  comfortably 
wadded  cushion.  He  controlled  twenty  or 
thirty  writers,  each  wrapped  round  a  huge, 
country  paper  account-book,  and  each  far  too 
busy  to  raise  his  eyes. 

The  babble  on  the  staircase  might  have  been 
the  noise  of  the  sea  so  far  as  these  men  were 
concerned.  It  ebbed  and  flowed  in  regular  beats, 
and  spread  out  far  into  the  courtyard  below. 
Now  and  again  the  click-dick-click  of  a  scab- 
bard tip  being  dragged  against  the  wall,  cut  the 
dead  sound  of  trampling  naked  feet,  and  a  sol- 
dier would  stumble  up  the  narrow  way  into  the 
sun-light.  He  was  received,  and  sent  back  or 
forward  by  a  knot  of  keen-eyed  loungers,  who 
seemed  to  act  as  a  buffer  between  the  peace  of 


220  Letters  of  Marque 

the  Secretariat  and  the  pandemonium  of  the  Ad- 
ministrative. Saises  and  grass-cutters,  mahouts 
of  elephants,  brokers,  mahajuns,  villagers  from 
the  district,  and  here  and  there  a  shock-headed 
aborigine,  swelled  the  mob  on  and  at  the  foot  of 
the  stairs.  As  they  came  up,  they  met  the  buf- 
fer-men who  spoke  in  low  voices,  and  appeared 
to  filter  them  according  to  their  merits.  Some 
were  sent  to  the  far  end  of  the  verandah,  where 
everything  melted  away  in  a  fresh  crowd  of  dark 
faces.  Others  were  sent  back,  and  joined  the 
detachment  shuffling  for  shoes  in  the  ehowk. 
One  servant  of  the  Palace  withdrew  himself  to 
the  open,  underneath  the  verandah,  and  there 
sat  yapping  from  time  to  time  like  a  hungry 
dog:— "The  grass !  The  grass !  The  grass !"  But 
the  men  with  the  account-books  never  stirred. 
Other  men  knelt  down  in  front  of  them  and 
whispered.  And  they  bowed  their  heads  gravely 
and  made  entry  or  erasure,  turning  back  the 
rustling  leaves.  ISTot  often  does  a  reach  of  the 
River  of  Life  so  present  itself  that  it  can  without 
alteration  be  transferred  to  canvas.  But  the 
Treasury  of  Boondi,  the  view  up  the  long  ve- 
randah, stood  complete  and  ready  for  any  artist 
who  cared  to  make  it  his  own.  And  by  that 
lighter  and  less  malicious  irony  of  the  Fate,  who 
is  always  giving  nuts  to  those  who  have  no  teeth, 


Letters  of  Marque  221 

the  picture  was  clinched  and  brought  together 
by  a  winking,  brass  hookah-bowl  of  quaint  de- 
sign, pitched  carelessly  upon  a  roll  of  dull-red 
cloth  full  in  the  foreground.  The  faces  of  the 
accountants  were  of  pale  gold,  for  they  were  an 
untanned  breed,  and  the  face  of  the  old  man 
their  controller  was  like  frosted  silver. 

It  was  a  strange  Treasury,  but  no  other  could 
have  suited  the  Palace.  The  Englishman 
watched  open-mouthed,  blaming  himself  be- 
cause he  could  not  catch  the  meaning  of  the 
orders  given  to  the  flying  chaprassies,  nor  make 
anything  of  the  hum  in  the  verandah  and  the 
tumult  on  the  stairs.  The  old  man  took  the  com- 
monplace Currency  Note  and  announced  his 
willingness  to  give  change  in  silver.  "  We  have 
no  small  notes  here,"  he  said.  "  They  are  not 
wanted.  In  a  little  while,  when  you  next  bring 
the  Honour  of  your  Presence  this  way,  you  shall 
find  the  silver." 

The  Englishman  was  taken  down  the  steps 
and  fell  into  the  arms  of  a  bristled  giant  who 
had  left  his  horse  in  the  courtyard,  and  the 
giant  spoke  at  length,  waving  his  arms  in  the 
air,  but  the  Englishman  could  not  understand 
him  and  dropped  into  the  hub-bub  at  the  Palace 
foot.  Except  the  main  lines  of  the  building 
there  is  nothing  strange  or  angular  about  it. 


222  Letters  of  Marque 

The  rush  of  people  seems  to  have  rounded  and 
softened  every  corner,  as  a  river  grinds  down, 
boulders.  From  the  lowest  tier,  two  zigzags,  all 
of  rounded  stones  sunk  in  mortar,  took  the 
Englishman  to  a  gate  where  two  carved  ele- 
phants were  thrusting  at  each  other  over  the 
arch ;  and,  because  neither  he  nor  any  one  round 
him  could  give  the  gate  a  name,  he  called  it  the 
"Gate  of  the  Elephants."  Here  the  noise  from 
the  Treasury  was  softened,  and  entry  through 
the  gate  brought  him  into  a  well-known  world, 
the  drowsy  peace  of  a  King's  Palace.  There 
was  a  court-yard  surrounded  by  stables,  in 
which  were  kept  chosen  horses,  and  two  or  three 
saises  were  sleeping  in  the  sun.  There  was  no 
other  life  except  the  whirr  and  coo  of  the 
pigeons.  In  time — though  really  there  is  no 
such  a  thing  as  time  off  the  line  of  railway — an 
official  appeared  begirt  with  the  skewer-like 
keys  that  open  the  native  bayonet-locks  each 
from  six  inches  to  a  foot  long.  Where  was  the 
Raj  Mahal  in  which,  sixty-six  years  ago,  Tod 
formally  installed  Ram  Singh,  "who  is  now  in 
his  eleventh  year,  fair  and  with  a  lively  intelli- 
gent cast  of  face"  ?  The  warden  made  no 
answer,  but  led  to  a  room,  overlooking  the  court- 
yard, in  which  two  armed  men  stood  before  an 
empty  throne  of  white  marble.  They  motioned 


Letters  of  Marque  223 

silently  that  none  must  pass  immediately  before 
the  takht  of  the  King,  but  go  round,  keeping  to 
the  far  side  of  the  double  row  of  pillars.  Near 
the  walls  were  stone  slabs  pierced  to  take  the 
butts  of  long,  venomous,  black  bamboo  lances; 
rude  coffers  were  disposed  about  the  room,  and 
ruder  sketches  of  Ganesh  adorned  the  walls. 
"  The  men,"  said  the  warden,  "  watch  here  day 
and  night  because  this  place  is  the  Rutton  Dau- 
lat."  That,  you  will  concede,  is  lucid  enough. 
He  who  does  not  understand  it,  may  go  to  for  a 
thick-headed  barbarian. 

From  the  Rutton  Daulat  the  warden  unlocked 
doors  that  led  into  a  hall  of  audience — the  Chut- 
ter  Mahal — built  by  Raja  Chutter  Lai,  who  was 
killed  more  than  two  hundred  years  ago  in  the 
latter  days  of  Shah  Jehan  for  whom  he  fought. 
Two  rooms,  each  supported  on  double  rows  of 
pillars,  flank  the  open  space,  in  the  centre  of 
which  is  a  marble  reservoir.  Here  the  English- 
man looked  anxiously  for  some  of  the  atrocities 
of  the  West,  and  was  pleased  to  find  that,  with 
the  exception  of  a  vase  of  artificial  flowers  and 
a  clock,  both  hid  in  mihrabs,  there  was  nothing 
that  jarred  with  the  exquisite  pillars,  and  the 
raw  blaze  of  colour  in  the  roofs  of  the  rooms. 
In  the  middle  of  these  impertinent  observations, 
something  sighed — sighed  like  a  distressed 


224  Letters  of  Marque 

ghost.  Unaccountable  voices  are  at  all  times 
unpleasant,  especially  when  the  hearer  is  some 
hundred  feet  or  so  above  ground  in  an  unknown 
Palace  in  an  unknown  land.  A  gust  of  wind 
had  found  its  way  through  one  of  the  latticed 
balconies,  and  had  breathed  upon  a  thin  plate  of 
metal,  some  astrological  instrument,  slung  gong- 
wise  on  a  tripod.  The  tone  was  as  soft  as  that 
of  an  Aeolian  harp,  and,  because  of  the  sur- 
roundings, infinitely  more  plaintive. 

There  was  an  inlaid  ivory  door,  set  in  lintel 
and  posts  crusted  with  looking-glass — all  ap- 
parently old  work.  This  opened  into  a  darkened 
room  where  there  were  gilt  and  silver  charpoys, 
and  portraits,  in  the  native  fashion,  of  the  illus- 
trious dead  of  Boondi.  Beyond  the  darkness 
was  a  balcony  clinging  to  the  sheer  side  of  the 
Palace,  and  it  was  then  that  the  Englishman 
realised  to  what  a  height  he  had  climbed  with- 
out knowing  it.  He  looked  down  upon  the 
bustle  of  the  Treasury  and  the  stream  of  life 
flowing  into  and  out  of  the  Gate  of  the  Fishes 
where  the  big  nakarras  lie.  Lifting  his  eyes, 
he  saw  how  Boondi  City  had  built  itself,  spread- 
ing from  west  to  east  as  the  confined  valley  be- 
came too  narrow  and  the  years  more  peaceable. 
The  Boondi  hills  are  the  barrier  that  separates 
the  stony,  uneven  ground  near  Deoli  from  the 


Letters  of  Marque  225 

flats  of  Kotah,  twenty  miles  away.  From  the 
Palace  balcony  the  road  to  the  eye  is  clear  to  the 
banks  of  the  Chumbul  river,  which  was  the  De- 
batable Ford  in  times  gone  by  and  was  leaped 
as  all  rivers  with  any  pretensions  to  a  pedigree 
have  been,  by  more  than  one  magic  horse. 
Northward  and  easterly  the  hills  run  out  to 
Indurgarh,  and  southward  and  westerly  to  ter- 
ritory marked  "  disputed  "  on  the  map  in  the 
present  year  of  grace.  From  this  balcony  the 
Raja  can  see  to  the  limit  of  his  territory  east- 
ward, like  the  good  King  of  Yves  his  empire  is 
all  under  his  hand.  He  is,  or  the  politicals  err, 
that  same  Ram  Singh  who  was  installed  by  Tod 
in  1821,  and  for  whose  success  in  killing  his 
first  deer,  Tod  was,  by  the  Queen-Mother  of 
Boondi,  bidden  to  rejoice.  To-day  the  people  of 
Boondi  say : — "  This  Durbar  is  very  old,  so  old 
that  few  men  remember  its  beginning,  for  they 
were  in  our  father's  time.7'  It  is  related  also  of 
Boondi  that,  on  the  occasion  of  the  Queen's  Jubi- 
lee, they  said  proudly  that  their  ruler  had 
reigned  for  sixty  years,  and  he  was  a  man.  They 
saw  nothing  astonishing  in  the  fact  of  a  woman 
having  reigned  for  fifty.  History  does  not  say 
whether  they  jubilated;  for  there  are  no  Eng- 
lishmen in  Boondi  to  write  accounts  of  demon- 
strations and  foundation-stones  laying  to  the 


226  Letters  of  Marque 

daily  newspapers,  and  then  Boondi  is  ver y,  very 
small.  In  the  early  morning  you  may  see  a  man 
being  pantingly  chased  out  of  the  city  by  an- 
other man  with  a  naked  sword.  This  is  the 
dak  and  the  dak  guard;  and  the  effect  is  as 
though  runner  and  swordsman  lay  under  a  doom 
— the  one  to  fly  with  the  fear  of  death  always 
before  him,  as  men  fly  in  dreams,  and  the  other 
to  perpetually  fail  of  his  revenge.  But  this 
Reaves  us  still  in  the  swallow  nest  balcony. 

The  warden  unlocked  more  doors  and  led  the 
Englishman  still  higher,  but  into  a  garden — a 
heavily  timbered  garden  with  a  tank  for  gold 
fish  in  the  midst!  For  once  the  impassive  fol- 
lowing smiled  when  they  saw  that  the  English- 
man was  impressed.  "  This,"  said  they,  "  is  the 
Eang  Bilas."  "But  who  made  it?"  "Who 
knows  ?  It  was  made  long  ago."  The  English- 
man looked  over  the  garden-wall,  a  foot  high 
parapet,  and  shuddered.  There  was  only  the 
flat  side  of  the  Palace,  and  a  drop  on  to  the 
stones  of  the  zigzags  scores  of  feet  below.  Above 
him  was  the  riven  hillside  and  the  decaying  wall 
of  Taragarh,  and  behind  him  this  fair  garden, 
hung  like  Mahomet's  coffin,  full  of  the  noise  of 
birds  and  the  talking  of  the  wind  in  the 
branches.  The  warden  entered  into  a  lengthy 
explanation  of  the  nature  of  the  delusion,  show- 


Letters  of  Marque  227 

ing  how — but  he  was  stopped  before  he  had 
finished.  His  listener  did  not  want  to  know 
"  how  the  trick  was  done."  Here  was  the  garden, 
and  there  were  three  or  four  storeys  climbed  to 
reach  to  it.  Bus.  At  one  end  of  the  garden  was 
a  small  room,  under  treatment  by  native  artists 
who  were  painting  the  panels  with  historical 
pictures,  in  distemper.  Theirs  was  florid  poly- 
chromatic art,  but  skirting  the  floor  was  a  series 
of  frescoes  in  red,  black  and  white,  of  combats 
with  elephants,  bold  and  temperate  as  good  Ger- 
man work.  They  were  worn  and  defaced  in 
places;  but  the  hand  of  some  bye-gone  limner, 
who  did  not  know  how  to  waste  a  line,  showed 
under  the  bruises  and  scratches,  and  put  the 
newer  work  to  shame. 

Here  the  tour  of  the  Palace  ended;  and  it 
must  be  remembered  that  the  Englishman  had 
not  gone  the  depth  of  three  rooms  into  one  flank. 
Acres  of  building  lay  to  the  right  of  him,  and 
above  the  lines  of  the  terraces  he  could  see  the 
tops  of  green  trees.  "  Who  knew  how  many 
gardens,  such  as  the  Rang  Bilas,  were  to  be 
found  in  the  Palace?"  No  one  answered  di- 
rectly, but  all  said  that  there  were  many.  The 
warden  gathered  up  his  keys,  and  locking  each 
door  behind  him  as  he  passed,  led  the  way  down 
to  earth.  But  before  he  had  crossed  the  garden, 


228  Letters  of  Marque 

the  Englishman  heard,  deep  down  in  the  bowels 
of  the  Palace,  a  woman's  voice  singing,  and  the 
voice  rang  as  do  voices  in  caves.  All  Palaces  in 
India  excepting  dead  ones,  such  as  that  of  Am- 
ber, are  full  of  eyes.  In  some,  as  has  been  said, 
the  idea  of  being  watched  is  stronger  than  in 
others.  In  Boondi  Palace  it  was  overpowering 
— being  far  worse  than  in  the  green  shuttered 
corridors  of  Jodhpur.  There  were  trap-doors 
on  the  tops  of  terraces,  and  windows  veiled  in 
foliage,  and  bull's  eyes  set  low  in  unexpected 
walls,  and  many  other  peep-holes  and  places  of 
vantage.  In  the  end,  the  Englishman  looked 
devoutly  at  the  floor,  but  when  the  voice  of  the 
woman  came  up  from  under  his  feet,  he  felt  that 
there  was  nothing  left  for  him  but  to  go.  Yet, 
excepting  only  this  voice,  there  was  deep  silence 
everywhere,  and  nothing  could  be  seen. 

The  warden  returned  to  the  Chutter  Mahal  to 
pick  up  a  lost  key.  The  brass  table  of  the 
planets  was  sighing  softly  to  itself  as  it  swung 
to  and  fro  in  the  wind.  That  was  the  last  view 
of  the  interior  of  the  Palace,  the  empty  court, 
and  the  swinging  sighing  jantar. 

About  two  hours  afterwards,  when  he  had 
reached  the  other  side  of  the  valley  and  seen  the 
full  extent  of  the  buildings,  the  Englishman  be- 
gan to  realise  first  that  he  had  not  been  taken 


Letters  of  Marque  229 

through  one-tenth  of  the  Palace;  and  secondly, 
that  he  would  do  well  to  measure  its  extent  by 
acres,  in  preference  to  meaner  measures.  But 
what  made  him  blush  hotly,  all  alone  among 
the  tombs  on  the  hill  side,  was  the  idea  that  he 
with  his  ridiculous  demands  for  eggs,  firewood, 
and  sweet  drinking  water,  should  have  clattered 
and  chattered  through  any  part  of  it  at  all. 

He  began  to  understand  why  Boondi  does  not 
encourage  Englishmen. 


230  Letters  of  Marque 


XVIII. 

Of  the  Uncivilised  Night  and  the  Departure  to 
Things  Civilised.  Showing  how  a  Friend 
may  keep  an  Appointment  too  well. 

"  T  ET  us  go  hence,  my  songs,  she  will  not 
L  hear.  Let  us  go  hence  together  without 
fear!"  But  Ram  Baksh  the  irrepressible  sang 
it  in  altogether  a  baser  key.  He  came  by  night 
to  the  pavilion  on  the  lake,  while  the  sepoys 
were  cooking  their  fish,  and  reiterated  his  whine 
about  the  devildom  of  the  country  into  which 
the  Englishman  had  dragged  him.  Padre  Mar- 
turn  Sahib  would  never  have  thus  treated  the 
owner  of  sixteen  horses,  all  fast  and  big  ones, 
and  eight  superior  "  shutin  tongas."  "  Let  us 
get  away,"  said  Ram  Baksh.  "You  are  not  here 
for  shikar,  and  the  water  is  very  bad."  It  was 
indeed,  except  when  taken  from  the  lake,  and 
then  it  only  tasted  fishy.  "  We  will  go,  Ram 
Baksh,"  said  the  Englishman.  "  We  will  go  in 
the  very  early  morning,  and  in  the  meantime 
here  is  fish  to  stay  your  stomach  with." 

When  a  transparent  Jcanat,  which  fails  by 


Letters  of  Marque  231 

three  feet  to  reach  ceiling  or  floor,  is  the  only 
bar  between  the  East  and  the  West,  he  would  be 
a  churl  indeed  who  stood  upon  "  invidious  race 
distinctions."  The  Englishman  went  out  and 
fraternised  with  the  Military — the  four-rupee 
soldiers  of  Boondi  who  guarded  him.  They 
were  armedj  one  with  an  old  Tower  musket 
crazy  as  to  nipple  and  hammer,  one  with  a  na- 
tive-made smooth-bore,  and  one  with  a  compos- 
ite contrivance — English  sporting  muzzle- 
loader  stock  with  a  compartment  for  a  jointed 
cleaning-rod,  and  hammered  octagonal  native 
barrel,  wire-fastened,  with  a  tuft  of  cotton  on 
the  foresight.  All  three  guns  were  loaded,  and 
the  owners  were  very  proud  of  them.  They 
were  simple  folk,  these  men  at  arms,  with  an 
inordinate  appetite  for  broiled  fish.  They  were 
not  always  soldiers  they  explained.  They  culti- 
vated their  crops  until  wanted  for  any  duty  that 
might  turn  up.  They  were  paid,  now  and  again, 
at  intervals,  but  they  were  paid  in  coin  and  not 
in  kind. 

The  munsJiis  and  the  vakils  and  the  runners 
had  departed  after  seeing  that  the  Englishman 
was  safe  for  the  night,  so  the  freedom  of  the 
little  gathering  on  the  bund  was  unrestrained. 
The  chowlcidar  came  out  of  his  cave  into  the 
firelight.  Warm  wood  ashes,  by  the  way,  like 


232  Letters  of  Marque 

Epp's  cocoa,  are  "  grateful  and  comforting  "  to 
cold  toes.  He  took  a  fish  and  incontinently 
choked,  for  he  was  a  feeble  old  man.  Set  right 
again,  he  launched  into  a  very  long  and  quite 
unintelligible  story  while  the  sepoys  said  rev- 
erently : — "  He  is  an  old  man  and  remembers 
many  things."  As  he  babbled,  the  night  shut  in 
upon  the  lake  and  the  valley  of  Boondi.  The 
last  cows  were  driven  into  the  water  for  their 
evening  drink,  the  waterfowl  and  the  monkeys 
went  to  bed,  and  the  stars  came  out  and  made 
a  new  firmament  in  the  untroubled  bosom  of  the 
lake.  The  light  of  the  fire  showed  the  ruled 
line  of  the  bund  springing  out  of  the  soft  dark- 
ness of  the  wooded  hill  on  the  left  and  disap- 
pearing into  the  solid  darkness  of  the  bare  hill 
on  the  right.  Below  the  bund  a  man  cried  aloud 
to  keep  wandering  pigs  from  the  gardens  whose 
tree-tops  rose  to  a  level  with  the  bund-edge.  Be- 
yond the  trees  all  was  swaddled  in  gloom. 
When  the  gentle  buzz  of  the  unseen  city  died 
out,  it  seemed  as  though  the  bund  were  the  very 
Swordwide  Bridge  that  runs,  as  every  one 
knows,  between  this  world  and  the  next.  The 
water  lapped  and  muttered,  and  now  and  again 
a  fish  jumped,  with  the  shatter  of  broken  glass, 
blurring  the  peace  of  the  reflected  heavens. 


Letters  of  Marque  233 

"And  duller  should  I  be  than  some  fat  weed 
That  rots  itself  at  ease  on  Lethe's  wharf." 

The  poet  who  wrote  those  lines  knew  nothing 
whatever  of  Lethe's  wharf.  The  Englishman 
had  found  it,  and  it  seemed  to  him,  at  that  hour 
and  in  that  place,  that  it  would  be  good  and  de- 
sirable never  to  return  to  the  Commissioners  and 
the  Deputy  Commissioners  any  more,  but  to  lie 
at  ease  on  the  warm  sunlit  bund  by  day,  and, 
at  night,  near  a  shadow-breeding  fire,  to  listen 
for  the  strangled  voices  and  whispers  of  the 
darkness  in  the  hills;  thus  after  as  long  a  life 
as  the  chowkidars,  dying  easily  and  pleasantly, 
and  being  buried  in  a  red  tomb  on  the  borders 
of  the  lake.  Surely  no  one  would  come  to  re- 
claim him,  across  those  weary,  weary  miles  of. 
rock-strewn  road .  .  .  . "  And  this,"  said  the 
chowkidar,  raising  his  voice  to  enforce  atten- 
tion, ais  true  talk.  Everybody  knows  it,  and  now 
the  Sahib  knows  it.  I  am  an  old  man."  He  fell 
asleep  at  once,  with  his  hand  on  the  chillam  that 
was  doing  duty  for  a  whole  JiuJcka  among  the 
company.  He  had  been  talking  for  nearly  a 
quarter  of  an  hour. 

See  how  great  a  man  is  the  true  novelist !  Six 
or  seven  thousand  miles  away,  Walter  Besant 
of  the  Golden  Pen  had  created  Mr.  Maliphant 
— the  ancient  of  figureheads,  in  AH  8orts  and 


234:  'Letters  of  Marque 

Conditions  of  Men,  and  here,  in  Boondi,  the 
Englishman  had  found  Mr.  Maliphant  in  the 
withered  flesh.  So  he  drank  Walter  Besant's 
health  in  the  water  of  the  Burra  Talao.  One  of 
the  sepoys  turned  himself  round,  with  a  clatter 
of  accoutrements,  shifted  his  blanket  under  his 
elbow,  and  told  a  tale.  It  had  something  to  do 
with  his  ~khei,  and  a  gunna  which  certainly  was 
not  sugar-cane.  It  was  elusive.  At  times  it 
seemed  that  it  was  a  woman,  then  changed  to  a 
right  of  way,  and  lastly  appeared  to  be  a  tax ; 
but  the  more  he  attempted  to  get  at  its  meaning 
through  the  curious  patois  in  which  its  doings  or 
its  merits  were  enveloped,  the  more  dazed  the 
Englishman  became.  None  the  less  the  story 
was  a  fine  one,  embellished  with  much  dramatic 
gesture  which  told  powerfully  against  the  fire- 
light. Then  the  second  sepoy,  who  had  been 
enjoying  the  chillam  all  the  time,  told  a  tale, 
the  purport  of  which  was  that  the  dead  in  the 
tombs  round  the  lake  were  wont  to  get  up  of 
nights  and  shikar.  This  was  a  fine  and  ghostly 
story;  and  its  dismal  effect  was  much  heightened 
by  some  clamour  of  the  night  far  up  the  lake 
beyond  the  floor  of  stars. 

The  third  sepoy  said  nothing.  He  had  eaten 
too  much  fish  and  was  fast  asleep  by  the  side  of 
the  chowJcidar. 


Letters  of  Marque  235 

They  were  all  Mahomedans,  and  consequent- 
ly all  easy  to  deal  with.  A  Hindu  is  an  excel- 
lent person,  but. . .  .but. . .  .there  is  no  knowing 
what  is  in  his  heart,  and  he  is  hedged  about 
with  so  many  strange  observances. 

The  Hindu  or  Mahomedan  bent,  whichjeach 
Englishman's  mind  must  take  before  he  has 
been  three  years  in  the  country  is,  of  course, 
influenced  by  Province  or  Presidency.  In  Raj- 
putana  generally,  the  Political  swears  by  the 
Hindu,  and  holds  that  the  Mahomedan  is  un- 
trustworthy. But  a  man  who  will  eat  with  you 
and  take  your  tobacco,  sinking  the  fiction  that 
it  has  been  doctored  with  shrub,  cannot  be  very 
bad  after  all. 

That  night  when  the  tales  were  all  told  and 
the  guard,  bless  them,  were  snoring  peaceably  in 
the  starlight,  a  man  came  stealthily  into  the 
enclosure  of  Jcanats  and  woke  the  Englishman 
by  muttering  Sahib,  Sahib  in  his  ear.  It  was 
no  robber  but  some  poor  devil  with  a  petition — 
a  grimy,  welted  paper.  He  was  absolutely  un- 
intelligible, and  additionally  so  in  that  he  stam- 
mered almost  to  dumbness.  He  stood  by  the 
bed,  alternately  bowing  to  the  earth  and  stand- 
ing erect,  his  arms  spread  aloft,  and  his  whole 
body  working  as  he  tried  to  force  out  some  re- 
bellious word  in  a  key  that  should  not  wake  the 


236  letters  of  Marque 

men  without.  What  could  the  Englishman 
do?  He  was  no  Government  servant,  and  had 
no  concern  with  urzis.  It  was  laughable  to  lie 
in  a  warm  bed  and  watch  this  unfortunate 
heathen,  clicking  and  choking  and  gasping  in 
his  desperate  desire  to  make  the  Sahib  under- 
stand. It  was  also  unpleasantly  pathetic,  and 
the  listener  found  himself  as  blindly  striving  to 
catch  the  meaning  as  the  pleader  to  make  him- 
self comprehended.  But  it  was  no  use ;  and  in 
the  end  the  man  departed  as  he  had  come — 
bowed,  abject,  and  unintelligible. 

Let  every  word  written  against  Ganesh  be 
rescinded.  It  was  by  his  ordering  that  the  Eng- 
lishman saw  such  a  dawn  on  the  Burra  Talao  as 
he  had  never  before  set  eyes  on.  Every  fair 
morning  is  a  reprint,  blurred  perhaps,  of  the 
opening  of  the  First  Day;  but  this  splendour 
was  a  thing  to  be  put  aside  from  all  other  days 
and  remembered.  The  stars  had  no  fire  in  them 
and  the  fish  had  stopped  jumping,  when  the 
black  water  of  the  lake  paled  and  grew  grey. 
While  he  watched,  it  seemed  to  the  Englishman 
that  some  voice  on  the  hills  were  intoning  the 
first  verses  of  Genesis.  The  grey  light  moved 
on  the  face  of  the  waters  till,  with  no  interval, 
a  blood-red  glare  shot  up  from  the  horizon  and, 
inky  black  against  the  intense  red,  a  giant  crane 


Letters  of  Marque  237 

floated  out  towards  the  sun.  In  the  still 
shadowed  city  the  great  Palace  drum  boomed 
and  throbbed  to  show  that  the  gates  were  open, 
while  the  dawn  swept  up  the  valley  and  made  all 
things  clear.  The  blind  man  who  said : — "  The 
blast  of  a  trumpet  is  red  "  spoke  only  the  truth. 
The  breaking  of  the  red  dawn  is  like  the  blast  of 
a  trumpet. 

"  What/'  said  the  cJiowkidar,  picking  the 
ashes  of  the  overnight  fire  out  of  his  beard, 
"  what,  I  say,  are  five  eggs  or  twelve  eggs  to 
such  a  Raj  as  ours  ?  What  also  are  fowls — what 

are  " — "  There  was  no  talk  of  fowls. 

Where  is  the  fowl-man  from  whom  you  got  the 
eggs  ?"  "  He  is  here.  No,  he  is  there.  I  do 
not  know.  I  am  an  old  man,  and  I  and  the  Raj 
supply  everything  without  price.  The  murghi- 
ivalla  will  be  paid  by  the  State — liberally  paid. 
Let  the  Sahib  be  happy !  Wah!  Wah!" 

Experience  of  beegar  in  Himalayan  villages 
had  made  the  Englishman  very  tender  in  rais- 
ing supplies  that  were  given  gratis;  but  the 
murghiwalla  could  not  be  found,  and  the  value 
of  his  wares  was,  later,  paid  to  Ganesh — Ganesh 
of  Situr,for  that  is  the  name  of  the  village  full  of 
priests,  through  which  the  Englishman  had  passed 
in  ignorance  two  days  before.  A  double  handful 
of  sweet  smelling  flowers  made  the  receipt. 


238  Letters  of  Marque 

Boondi  was  wide  awake  before  half -past  seven 
in  the  morning.  Her  hunters,  on  foot  and  on 
horse,  were  filing  towards  the  Deoli  Gate  to  go 
shikarring.  They  would  hunt  tiger  and  deer 
they  said,  even  with  matchlocks  and  muzzle-load- 
ers as  uncouth  as  those  the  Sahib  saw.  They 
were  a  merry  company  and  chaffed  the  Quarter- 
Guard  at  the  gate  unmercifully  when  a  bullock- 
cart,  laden  with  the  cases  of  the  aBatoum 
Naphtha  and  Oil  Company  "  blocked  the  road. 
One  of  them  had  been  a  soldier  of  the  Queen, 
and,  excited  by  the  appearance  of  a  Sahib,  did 
so  rebuke  and  badger  the  Quarter-Guard  for 
their  slovenliness  that  they  threatened  to  come 
out  of  the  barracks  and  destroy  him. 

So,  after  one  last  look  at  the  Palace  high  up 
the  hill  side,  the  Englishman  was  borne  away 
along  the  Deoli  road.  The  peculiarity  of  Boon- 
di is  the  peculiarity  of  the  covered  pitfall.  One 
does  not  see  it  till  one  falls  into  it.  A  quarter  of 
a  mile  from  the  gate,  it  and  its  Palace  were  in- 
visible. The  runners  who  had  chivalrously 
volunteered  to  protect  the  wanderer  against  pos- 
sible dacoits  had  been  satisfactorily  disposed  of, 
and  all  was  peace  and  unruffled  loaferdom.  But 
the  Englishman  was  grieved  at  heart.  He  had 
fallen  in  love  with  Boondi  the  beautiful,  and  be- 
lieved that  he  would  never  again  see  anything 


Letters  of  Marque  239 

half  so  fair.  The  utter  untouchedness  of  the 
town  was  one-half  the  charm  and  its  associa- 
tions the  other.  Head  Tod,  who  is  far  too  good 
to  be  chipped  or  sampled,  read  Tod  luxuriously 
on  the  bund  of  the  Burra  Talao,  and  the  spirit 
of  the  place  will  enter  into  you  and  you  will  be 
happy. 

To  enjoy  life  thoroughly,  haste  and  bustle 
must  be  abandoned.  Rani  Baksh  has  said  that 
Englishmen  are  always  dikfcing  to  go  forward, 
and  for  this  reason,  though  beyond  doubt  they 
pay  well  and  readily,  are  not  wise  men.  He 
gave  utterance  to  this  philosophy  after  he  had 
mistaken  his  road  and  pulled  up  in  what  must 
have  been  a  disused  quarry  hard  by  a  cane-field. 
There  were  patches  and  pockets  of  cultivation 
along  the  rocky  road,  where  men  grew  cotton, 
til,  chillies,  tobacco,  and  sugar-cane.  "  I  will 
get  you  sugar-cane,"  said  Ram  Baksh.  "  Then 
we  will  go  forward,  and  perhaps  some  of  these 
jungly  fools  will  tell  us  where  the  road  is."  A 
"  jungly  fool,"  a  tender  of  goats,  did  in  time 
appear,  but  there  was  no  hurry ;  the  sugar-cane 
was  sweet  and  purple  and  the  sun  warm. 

The  Englishman  lay  out  at  high  noon  on  the 
crest  of  a  rolling  upland  crowned  with  rock,  and 
heard,  as  a  loafer  had  told  him  he  would  hear, 
the  "  set  of  the  day,"  which  is  as  easily  discern- 


240  Letters  of  Marque 

ible  as  the  change  of  tone  between  the  rising  and 
the  falling  tide.  At  a  certain  hour  the  impetus 
of  the  morning  dies  out,  and  all  things,  living 
and  inanimate,  turn  their  thoughts  to  the  proph- 
ecy of  the  coming  night.  The  little  wander- 
ing breezes  drop  for  a  time,  and,  when  they 
blow  afresh,  bring  the  message.  The  "  set  of 
the  day  "  as  the  loafer  said,  has  changed,  the 
machinery  is  beginning  to  run  down,  the  unseen 
tides  of  the  air  are  falling.  The  moment  of  the 
change  can  only  be  felt  in  the  open  and  in  touch 
with  the  earth,  and  once  discovered,  seem  to 
place  the  finder  in  deep  accord  and  fellowship 
with  all  things  on  the  earth.  Perhaps  this  is  why 
the  genuine  loafer,  though  "  frequently  drunk," 
is  "  always  polite  to  the  stranger,"  and  shows 
such  a  genial  tolerance  towards  the  weaknesses 
of  mankind,  black,  white,  or  brown. 

In  the  evening  when  the  jackals  were  scut- 
tling across  the  roads  and  the  cranes  had  gone  to 
roost,  came  Deoli  the  desolate,  and  an  unpleas- 
ant meeting.  Six  days  away  from  his  kind  had 
bred  in  a  Cockney  heart  a  great  desire  to  see  an 
Englishman  again.  An  elaborate  loaf  through 
the  cantonment — fifteen  minutes'  walk  from 
end  to  end — showed  only  one  distant  dog-cart 
and  a  small  English  child  with  an  ayah.  There 
was  grass  in  the  soldierly-straight  roads,  and 


Letters  of  Marque  241 

some  of  the  cross-cuts  Ead  never  been  used  at  all 
from  the  days  when  the  cantonment  had  been' 
first  laid  out.  In  the  western  corner  lay  the 
cemetery — the  only  carefully-tended  and  newly- 
whitewashed  thing  in  this  God-forgotten  place. 
Some  years  ago  a  man  had  said  good-bye  to  the 
Englishman ;  adding  cheerily : — "  We  shall 
meet  again.  The  world's  a  very  little  place 
y'know."  His  prophecy  was  a  true  one,  for  the 
two  met  indeed,  but  the  prophet  was  lying  in 
Deoli  Cemetery  near  the  well,  which  is  decorat- 
ed so  ecclesiastically  with  funeral  urns.  Truly 
the  world  is  a  very  little  place  that  a  man 
should  so  stumble  upon  dead  acquaintances  when 
he  goes  abroad. 


242  Letters  of  Marque 


THE  LAST. 

Comes  "back  to  the  Railway,  after  Reflections  on 
the  Management  of  the  Empire;  and  so 
Home  again,  with  apology  to  all  who  have 
read  thus  far. 

IN  the  morning  the  tonga  rattled  past  Deoli 
Cemetery  into  the  open,  where  the  Deoli  Ir- 
regulars were  drilling.  They  marked  the  begin- 
ning of  civilisation  and  white  shirts ;  for  which 
reason  they  seemed  altogether  detestable.  Yet 
another  day's  jolting,  enlivened  by  the  philoso- 
phy of  Ram  Baksh,  and  then  came  Nasirabad. 
The  last  pair  of  ponies  suggested  serious 
thought.  They  had  covered  eighteen  miles  at 
an  average  speed  of  eight  miles  an  hour,  and 
were  well  conditioned  little  rats.  "  A  Colonel 
Sahib  gave  me  this  one  for  bakshish"  said  Ram 
Baksh,  flicking  the  near  one.  "  It  was  his  baba's 
pony.  The  baba  was  five  years  old.  When  he 
went  away,  the  Colonel  Sahib  said: — 'Ram 
Baksh,  you  are  a  good  man.  Never  have  I  seen 
such  a  good  man.  This  horse  is  yours/  "  Ram 
Baksh  was  getting  a  horse's  work  out  of  a  child's 
pony.  Surely  we  in  India  work  the  land  mucE 


Letters  of  Marque  243 

as  the  Colonel  Sahib  worked  his  son's  mount; 
making  it  do  child's  work  when  so  much  more 
can  be  screwed  out  of  it.  A  native  and  a  native 
State  deals  otherwise  with  horse  and  holding. 
Perhaps  our  extreme  scrupulousness  in  han- 
dling may  be  Statecraft,  but,  after  even  a  short 
sojourn  in  places  which  are  dealt  with  not  so 
tenderly,  it  seems  absurd.  There  are  States 
where  things  are  done,  and  done  without  pro- 
test, that  would  make  the  hair  of  the  educated 
native  stand  on  end  with  horror.  These  things 
are  of  course  not  expedient  to  write;  because 
their  publication  would  give  a  great  deal  of  un- 
necessary pain  and  heart-searching  to  estimable 
native  administrators  who  have  the  hope  of  a 
Star  before  their  eyes,  and  would  not  better 
matters  in  the  least. 

Note  this  fact  though.  With  the  exception  of 
such  journals  as,  occupying  a  central  position  in 
British  territory,  levy  blackmail  from  the  neigh- 
bouring States,  there  are  no  independent  pa- 
pers in  Rajputana.  A  King  may  start  a  weekly, 
to  encourage  <a  talste  for  Sanskrit  and  high 
Hindi,  or  a  Prince  may  create  a  Court  Chroni- 
cle ;  but  that  is  all.  A  "  free  press  "  is  not  al- 
lowed, and  this  the  native  journalist  knows. 
With  good  management  he  can,  keeping  under 
the  shadow  of  our  flag,  raise  two  hundred  rupees 


24:4:  Letters  of  Marque 

from  a  big  man  here,  and  five  hundred  from  a 
rich  man  there,  but  he  does  not  establish  himself 
across  the  Border.  To  one  who  has  reason  to 
hold  a  stubborn  disbelief  in  even  the  elementary 
morality  of  the  native  press,  this  bashfulness 
and  lack  of  enterprise  is  amusing.  But  to  re- 
turn to  the  over-the-way  administrations.  There 
is  nothing  exactly  wrong  in  the  methods  of  gov- 
ernment that  are  overlaid  with  English  terms 
and  forms.  They  are  vigorous,  in  certain  points, 
and  where  they  are  not  vigorous,  there  is  a 
cheery  happy-go-luckiness  about  the  arrange- 
ment that  must  be  seen  to  bo  understood.  The 
shift  and  play  of  a  man's  fortune  across  the 
Border  is  as  sudden  as  anything  in  the  days  of 
Haroun-al-Raschid  of  blessed  memory,  and 
there  are  stories,  to  be  got  for  the  unearthing,  as 
wild  and  as  improbable  as  those  in  the  Thousand 
and  One  Nights.  Most  impressive  of  all  is  the 
way  in  which  the  country  is  "  used,"  and  its 
elasticity  under  pressure.  In  the  good  old  days 
the  Durbar  raised  everything  it  could  from  the 
people,  and  the  King  spent  as  much  as  ever  he 
could  on  his  personal  pleasures.  Now  the  insti- 
tution of  the  Political  has  stopped  the  grabbing, 
for  which,  by  the  way,  some  of  the  monarchs  are 
not  in  the  least  grateful — and  smoothed  the  out- 
ward face  of  things.  But  there  is  still  a  differ- 


'Letters  of  Marque  245 

ence,  and  such  a  difference,  between  our  ways 
and  the  ways  of  the  other  places.  A  year  spent 
among  native  States  ought  to  send  a  man  back 
to  the  Decencies  and  the  Law  Courts  and  the 
Rights  of  the  Subject  with  a  supreme  contempt 
for  those  who  rave  about  the  oppressions  of  the 
brutal  bureaucrat.  One  month  nearly  taught  an 
average  Englishman  that  it  was  the  proper  thing 
to  smite  anybody  of  mean  aspect  and  obstructive 
tendencies  on  the  mouth  with  a  shoe.  Hear  what 
an  intelligent  loafer  said.  His  words  are  at  least 
as  valuable  as  these  babblings.  He  was,  as 
usual,  wonderfully  drunk,  and  the  gift  of  speech 
came  down  upon  him.  The  conversation — he 
was  a  great  politician  this  loafer — had  turned 
on  the  poverty  of  India : — "  Poor !  "  said  he. 
"  Of  course  it's  poor.  Oh  yes !  D — d  poor ! 
And  I'm  poor,  an7  you're  poor,  altogether.  Do 
you  expect  people  will  give  you  money  without 
you  ask  'em  ?  No.  I  tell  you,  Sir,  there's  enough 
money  in  India  to  pave  Hell  with  if  you  could 
only  get  at  it.  I've  kep'  servants  in  my  day. 
Did  they  ever  leave  me  without  a  hundred  or  a 
hundred  and  fifty  put  by — and  never  touched  ? 
You  mark  that.  Does  any  black  man  who  has 
been  in  Guv'ment  service  go  away  without  hun- 
dreds an'  hundreds  put  by — and  never  touched  ? 
You  mark  that.  Money!  The  place  stinks 


246  'Letters  of  Marque 

o'  money — just  kept  out  o'  sight.  Do  you  ever 
know  a  native  that  didn't  say  Garib  admi? 
They've  been  sayin'  Garib  admi  so  long  that  the 
Guv'ment  learns  to  believe  'em,  and  now  they're 
all  bein'  treated  as  though  they  was  paupers. 
I'm  a  pauper,  an'  you're  a  pauper — we 
'aven't  got  anything  hid  in  the  ground 
— an'  so's  every  white  man  in  this  for- 
saken country.  But  the  Injian  he's  a  rich 
man.  How  do  I  know?  Because  I've  tramped 
on  foot,  or  warrant  pretty  well  from  one  end  of 
the  place  to  the  other,  an'  I  know  what  I'm  talk- 
in'  about,  and  this  ere  Guv'ment  goes  peckin' 
an'  fiddlin'  over  its  tuppenny-ha'penny  little 
taxes  as  if  it  was  afraid.  Which  it  is.  You  see 

how  they  do  things  in .  It's  six  sowars  here, 

and  ten  sowars  there,  and — 'Pay  up, you  brutes, 
or  we'll  pull  your  ears  over  your  head.'  And 
when  they've  taken  all  they  can  get,  the  head- 
man, he  says : — '  This  is  a  dashed  poor  yield. 
I'll  come  again.'  Of  course  the  people  digs  up 
something  out  of  the  ground,  and  they  pay.  I 
know  the  way  it's  done,  and  that's  the  way  to  do 
it.  You  can't  go  to  an  Injian  an?  say: — '  Look 
here.  Can  you  pay  me  five  rupees  ?'  He  says: — 
'  Garib  admi'  of  course,  an'  would  say  it  if  he 
was  as  rich  as  a  banker.  But  if  you  send  half  a 
dozen  sowars  at  him  and  shift  the  thatch  off  of 


Letters  of  Marque  247 

his  roof,  he'll  pay.  Guv'ment  can't  do  that.  I 
don't  suppose  it  could.  There  is  no  reason  why  it 
shouldn't.  But  it  might  do  something  like  it, 
to  show  that  it  wasn't  going  to  have  no  nonsense. 
Why,  I'd  undertake  to  raise  a  hundred  million 
— what  am  I  talking  of  ? — a  hundred  and  fifty 
million  pounds  from  this  country  per  annum, 
and  it  wouldn't  be  strained  then.  One  hundred 
and  fifty  millions  you  could  raise  as  easy  as 
paint,  if  you  just  made  these  ere  Injians  under- 
stand that  they  had  to  pay  an'  make  no  bones 
about  it.  It's  enough  to  make  a  man  sick  to  go 

in  over  yonder  to and  see  what  they  do; 

and  then  come  back  an'  see  what  we  do.  Per- 
fectly sickenin'  it  is.  Borrer  money!  Why  the 
country  could  pay  herself  an'  everything  she 
wants,  if  she  was  only  made  to  do  it.  It's  this 
bloomin'  Garib  admi  swindle  that's  been  going 
on  all  these  years,  that  has  made  fools  o'  the 
Guv'ment."  Then  he  became  egoistical,  this 
ragged  ruffian  who  conceived  that  he  knew  the 
road  to  illimitable  wealth,  and  told  the  story  of 
his  life,  interspersed  with  anecdotes  that  would 
blister  the  paper  they  were  written  on.  But 
through  all  his  ravings,  he  stuck  to  his  hundred- 
and-fifty-million-theory,  and  though  the  listener 
dissented  from  him  and  the  brutal  cruelty  with 
which  his  views  were  stated,  an  unscientific  im- 


248  Letters  of  Marque 

pression  remained  and  was  not  to  be  shaken  off. 
Across  the  Border  one  feels  that  the  country  is 
being  used,  exploited,  "  made  to  sit  up/'  so  to 
speak.  In  our  territories  the  feeling  is  equally 
strong  of  wealth  "  just  round  the  corner/'  as 
the  loafer  said,  and  a  people  wrapped  up  in 
cotton  wool  and  ungetatable.  Will  any  man, 
who  really  knows  something  of  a  little  piece  of 
India  and  has  not  the  fear  of  running  counter 
to  custom  before  his  eyes,  explain  how  this  im- 
pression is  produced,  and  why  it  is  an  erroneous 
one?  This  digression  has  taken  us  far  from 
the  child's  pony  of  Ram  Baksh. 

Nasirabad  marked  the  end  of  the  English- 
man's holiday,  and  there  was  sorrow  in  his  heart. 
"  Come  back  again,"  said  Earn  Baksh  cheer- 
fully, "  and  bring  a  gun  with  you.  Then  I'll 
take  you  to  Gungra,  and  I'll  drive  you  myself. 
Drive  you  just  as  well  as  I've  driven  these  four 
days  past."  An  amicable  open-minded  soul  was 
Ram  Baksh.  May  his  tongas  never  grow  less. 

"  This  'ere  Burma  fever  is  a  bad  thing  to 
have.  It's  pulled  me  down  awful;  an'  now 
I  am  going  to  Peshawar.  Are  you  the  Station- 
Master  ?v  It  was  Thomas — white  cheeked,  sun- 
ken-eyed, drawn-mouthed  Thomas — travelling 
from  Nasirabad  to  Peshawar  on  pass ;  and  with 
him  was  a  Corporal  new  to  his  stripes  and  doing 


Letters  of  Marque  249 

station  duty.  Every  Thomas  is  interesting,  ex- 
cept when  he  is  too  drunk  to  speak.  This  Thomas 
was  an  enthusiast.  He  had  volunteered,  from 
a  Home-going  regiment  shattered  by  Burma 
fever,  into  a  regiment  at  Peshawar,  had  broken 
down  at  Nasirabad  on  his  way  up  with  his 
draft,  and  was  now  journeying  into  the  un- 
known to  pick  up  another  medal.  "  There's 
sure  to  be  something  on  the  Frontier,"  said  this 
gaunt,  haggard  boy — he  was  little  more,  though 
he  reckoned  four  years'  service  and  considered 
himself  somebody.  "  When  there's  anything  go- 
ing, Peshawar's  the  place  to  be  in,  they  tell  me ; 
but  I  hear  we  shall  have  to  march  down  to  Cal- 
cutta in  no  time."  The  Corporal  was  a  little 
man  and  showed  his  friend  off  with  great 
pride : — "  Ah,  you  should  have  come  to  us,"  said 
he ;  "  we're  the  regiment,  we  are."  "  Well,  I 
went  with  the  rest  of  our  men,"  said  Thomas. 
"  There's  three  hundred  of  us  volunteered  to 
stay  on,  and  we  all  went  for  the  same  regiment. 
Not  but  what  I'm  saying  yours  is  a  good  regi- 
ment," he  added  with  grave  courtesy.  This 
loosed  the  Corporal's  tongue,  and  he  discanted 
011  the  virtues  of  the  regiment  and  the  merits  of 
the  officers.  It  has  been  written  that  Thomas  is 
devoid  of  esprit  de  corps,  because  of  the  jerki- 
ness  of  the  arrangements  under  which  he  now 


250  Letters  of  Marque 

serves.  If  this  be  true,  he  manages  to  conceal 
his  feelings  very  well ;  for  he  speaks  most  fluently 
in  praise  of  his  own  regiment ;  and,  for  all  his 
youth,  has  a  keen  appreciation  of  the  merits  of 
his  officers.  Go  to  him  when  his  heart  is  opened, 
and  hear  him  going  through  the  roll  of  the  sub- 
alterns, by  a  grading  totally  unknown  in  the 
Army  List,  and  you  will  pick  up  something 
worth  the  hearing.  Thomas,  with  the  Burma 
fever  on  him,  tried  to  cut  in,  from  time  to  time, 
with  stories  of  his  officers  and  what  they  had 
done  "  when  we  was  marchin'  all  up  and  down 
Burma,"  but  the  little  Corporal  went  on  gaily. 

They  made  a  curioufe  contrast — these  two 
types.  The  lathy,  town-bred  Thomas  with  hock- 
bottle  shoulders,  a  little. education,  and  a  keen 
desire  to  get  more  medals  and  stripes ;  and  the 
little,  deep-chested,  bull-necked  Corporal  brim- 
ming over  with  vitality  and  devoid  of  any  ideas 
beyond  the  "  regiment."  And  the  end  of  both 
lives,  in  all  likelihood,  would  be  a  nameless  grave 
in  some  cantonment  burying-ground,  with,  if 
the  case  were  specially  interesting  and  the  Regi- 
mental Doctor  had  a  turn  for  the  pen,  an  obitu- 
ary notice  in  the  Indian  Medical  Journal.  It 
was  an  unpleasant  thought. 

From  the  Army  to  the  Navy  is  a  perfectly  nat- 
ural transition,  but  one  hardly  to  be  expected 


'Letters  of  Marque  251 

in  the  heart  of  India.  Dawn  showed  the  rail- 
way carriage  full  of  riotous  boys,  for  the  Agra 
and  Mount  Abu  schools  had  broken  up  for  holi- 
days. Surely  it  was  natural  enough  to  ask  a 
child — not  a  boy,  but  a  child — whether  he  was 
going  home  for  the  holidays ;  and  surely  it  was 
a  crushing,  a  petrifying  thing,  to  hear  in  a  clear 
treble,  tinged  with  icy  hauteur : — "  No !  I'm  on 
leave.  I'm  a  midshipman."  Two  "  officers  of 
Her  Majesty's  Navy  " — mids  of  a  man-o'-war 

in  Bombay were  going  Up-country  on  ten 

days'  leave !  They  had  not  travelled  much  more 
than  twice  round  the  world;  but  they  should 
have  printed  the  fact  on  a  label.  They  chatter- 
ed like  daws,  and  their  talk  was  as  a  whiff  of 
fresh  air  from  the  open  sea,  while  the  train  ran 
eastward  under  the  Aravalis.  At  that  hour  their 
lives  were  bound  up  in  and  made  glorious  by  the 
hope  of  riding  a  horse  when  they  reached  their 
journey's  end.  Much  had  they  seen  "  cities  and 
men,"  and  the  artless  way  in  which  they  inter- 
larded their  conversation  with  allusions  to  "  one 
of  these  shore-going  chaps  you  see "  was  de- 
licious. They  had  no  cares,  no  fears,  no  ser- 
vants, and  an  unlimited  stock  of  wonder  and 
admiration  for  everything  they  saw,  from  the 
"  cute  little  well-scoops  "  to  a  herd  of  deer  graz- 
ing on  the  horizon.  It  was  not  until  they  had 


252  Letters  of  Marque 

opened  their  young  hearts  with  infantine 
abandon  that  the  listener  could  guess  from  the 
incidental  argot  where  these  pocket-Ulysseses 
had  travelled.  South  African,  Norwegian,  and 
Arabian  words  were  used  to  help  out  the  slang 
of  Haslar,  and  a  copious  vocabulary  of  ship- 
board terms,  complicated  with  modern  Greek. 
As  free  from  self-consciousness  as  children,  as 
ignorant  as  beings  from  another  planet  of  the 
Anglo-Indian  life  into  which  they  were  going 
to  dip  for  a  few  days,  shrewd  and  observant  as 
befits  men  of  the  world  who  have  authority,  and 
neat-handed  and  resourceful  as — blue- jackets, 
they  were  a  delightful  study,  and  accepted 
freely  and  frankly  the  elaborate  apologies  ten- 
dered to  them  for  the  unfortunate  mistake  about 
the  "  holidays."  The  roads  divided  and  they 
went  their  way;  and  there  was  a  shadow  after 
they  had  gone,  for  the  Globe-Trotter  said  to  his 
wife : — "  What  I  like  about  Jeypore  " — accent 
on  the  first  syllable,  if  you  please — "  is  its  char- 
acteristic easternness."  And  the  Globe-Trotter's 
wife  said,  "  Yes !  It  is  purely  Oriental." 

This  was  Jeypore  with  the  gas-jets  and  the 
water-pipes  as  was  shown  at  the  beginning  of 
these  trivial  letters ;  and  the  Globe-Trotter  and 
his  wife  had  not  been  to  Amber.  Joyful  thought ! 
They  had  not  seen  the  soft  splendour  of  Udai- 


Letters  of  Marque  253 

pur,  the  night-mare  of  Chitor,  the  grim  power 
of  Jodhpur  and  the  virgin  beauty  of  Boondi — 
fairest  of  all  places  that  the  Englishman  had  set 
eyes  on.  The  Globe-Trotter  was  great  in  the 
matter  of  hotels  and  food,  but  he  had  not  lain 
under  the  shadow  of  a  tonga  in  soft  warm  sand, 
eating  cold  pork  with  a  pocket-knife  and  thank- 
ing Providence  who  put  sweet-water  streams 
where  wayfarers  wanted  them.  He  had  not 
drunk  out  the  brilliant  cold-weather  night  in 
the  company  of  a  King  of  loafers,  a  grimy  scal- 
lawag  with  a  six  days7  beard  and  an  unholy 
knowledge  of  native  States.  He  had  attended 
service  in  cantonment  churches;  but  he  had 
not  known  what  it  was  to  witness  the  simple 
solemn  ceremonial  in  the  dining-room  of  a  far 
away  Residency,  when  all  the  English  folk  with- 
in a  hundred-mile  circuit  bowed  their  heads  be- 
fore the  God  of  the  Christians.  He  had  blun- 
dered about  temples  of  strange  deities  with  a 
guide  at  his  elbow ;  but  he  had  not  known  what 
it  was  to  attempt  conversation  with  a  temple 
dancing-girl  (not  such  an  one  as  Edwin  Arnold 
invented),  and  to  be  rewarded  for  a  misturned 
compliment  with  a  deftly  heaved  bunch  of  mari- 
gold buds  on  his  respectable  bosom.  Yes,  he  had 
undoubtedly  lost  much,  and  the  measure  of  his 


254:  Letters  of  Marque 

loss  was  proven  in  his  estimate  of  the  Oriental- 
ism of  Jeypore. 

But  what  had  he  who  sat  in  judgment  upon 
him  gained  ?  One  perfect  month  of  loaf  erdom, 
to  be  remembered  above  all  others,  and  the  night 
of  the  visit  to  Chitor,  to  be  remembered  even 
when  the  month  is  forgotten.  Also  the  sad 
knowledge  that  of  all  the  fair  things  seen,  the 
inept  pen  gives  but  a  feeble  and  blurred  picture. 

Let  those  who  have  read  to  the  end,  pardon  a 
hundred  blemishes. 


YC190596 


